Best computer & video game design books according to redditors

We found 709 Reddit comments discussing the best computer & video game design books. We ranked the 132 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top Reddit comments about Computer & Video Game Design:

u/praisebjarne · 177 pointsr/learnprogramming

Hey! This is a really cool project idea, especially for a tutorial, but there are some things in the code that concern me.

Before I go any further, a disclaimer: You are not your code.

I work in the industry at a very big studio as a gameplay programmer, and there are a couple parts of this code that I saw right when opening the github that made me want to comment about code quality.

In Animated Sprite - you take in a file path and load an image directly from disk. This, on a large scale, will cause problems at load time. It could be ameliorated by doing all asset loading up front and maintaining a manager to dole out references to them in memory instead of from disk.
Secondly, Enemy inherits from Animated Sprite. This breaks a few rules, specifically the IS-A relationship in inheritance (also covariant problems. This is why the industry as a whole favors composition over inheritance. An enemy that is renderable might have a sprite to render with, but it wouldn’t BE a sprite.

There are other criticisms, but I’ll stop here. What I wanted to say was – Caveat Emptor. This is a fun project to learn what goes into a game, and no one here should quit based on these criticisms, especially if it inspires your passion. Rather, use this as an avenue to learn good software practices that can actually land you a gig in the industry.

A good resource for this project might be Game Programming Patterns or Game Engine Architecture.

Sorry if this came across offensive, but since this is r/learnprogramming, I figured it was a good chance to learn.

EDIT: Formatting
EDIT: GOLD?!

u/jmillerworks · 104 pointsr/KotakuInAction

You know some days I feel awful because my views and sales aren't as good as a lot of other peoples

But then a thread like this comes along and reminds me that[ I'm literally hundreds of thousands of ranks above all of these peoples best effort put together.]
(https://www.amazon.com/State-Play-Creators-Critics-Culture/dp/1609806395/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473475014&sr=8-1&keywords=state+of+play+creators+and+critics)

As of today my GamerGate book:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,401 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
56 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Marketing & Sales > Public Relations
157 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Video & Electronic Games
184 in Books > Business & Money > Marketing & Sales > Public Relations

Their book:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #850,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
594 in Books > Computers & Technology > Games & Strategy Guides > Game Programming
2257 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Video & Computer Games
5638 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Communication & Media Studies

I actually had a surge last weekend probably had something to do with that idiot song, don't know I was at dragoncon and been in new york all this week working on my next projects so couldn't chase that trend but I at least figured a rising tide would raise all ships. Still it's not fair right or respectful to my work or the people I will be working with to consider them competition anymore since we'd like to be at the actual top, not the pretend top where our friends circle jerk us..

u/[deleted] · 55 pointsr/Games

I'm really torn on this whole Greenlight thing.

I read Anna Anthropy's book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters recently, and in it, she makes the case that gaming is reaching a point where it's becoming an accessible medium at a hobbyist level. It used to be that you had to be a master programmer or artist or have a team of people funded by a company to make a game, but now we're reaching a place where tools are bridging skill gaps and almost anyone can make games.

She compares it to other media (e.g. writing, video), where accessibility opened up the platform and allowed for a huge plurality of narratives, thoughts, and experiences -- a point touched on in the video when talking about YouTube. An open medium gives us tons of crap, yes, but it also allows people to make games and tell stories that are different and individual and that wouldn't otherwise get made.

And I can definitely understand the value in that. There are a lot of brilliant people out there with a lot of compelling ideas and experiences, and it's great that games are finally reaching a point where they can be used to capture and express those on an individual level. It's going to lead to more diverse narratives and mechanics.

But I struggle with Greenlight because I find myself at odds with what I think and what I want.

Truth is, I really like Steam, and I really like that it is more limited in what it offers. I benefit from that in the implicit assurance of quality that's offered, as well as in my ability to parse what I want from a finite set of options. If I want to get a racing game, I can compare a small number of them, rather than having to sift through hundreds of similar-looking entries, and when I buy that game, I can be reasonably certain that it's going to be a complete game, run decently well, and have a minimum set of production values. And even when that isn't the case, Steam is slick enough that it's easy to see that as the exception rather than the rule.

As a customer, Steam works well for me, and I worry what a massive influx of games would do it. On the other hand, I definitely want access to some of that influx through the convenience of my favorite digital distribution platform, and I, deep down, really do think that that influx should be able to be accessed even if I don't want it.

Greenlight seems like an attempt at that, but it's one that seems half-assed and cursory. Even with dozens of professional reviews, news articles, and videos covering a well-known game, people still struggle all the time with whether or not it's worth their purchase (just look at all the heming and hawing that goes on over a $5 AAA game any time there's a Steam sale). Yet, with Greenlight, we're expecting people to make snap judgments of a game's worth and quality using a couple of promo shots and paragraphs, and we're doing it by popularity which, as reddit regularly shows, isn't always a great metric. It seems reductive, and seems to favor things that many smaller games are less likely to have (e.g. great graphics). A submission could have amazing writing and an incredible story, but if it doesn't have a look good or have a well-known fanbase/personality backing it up, it's probably going to be dead in the water on Greenlight. The whole system feels like an improper response ("beauty contest") to the problem at hand (plenty of fish in the sea).

I don't really know where I'm going with all of this other than that Greenlight is confusing to me because I'm not sure what to think. I really like the idea of openness and accessibility, I definitely see both the benefits and drawbacks of not having that, and I'm stuck pondering a bunch of different implementation issues when I consider how things could be changed. I also think the whole thing would be easier if we weren't so damn reliant on Steam in the first place. I'm thinking maybe the answer isn't in letting every game into Steam but instead getting some of us out of it and into Desura, GOG, and other platforms. The games want to go where the gamers are, and right now we're sitting behind the walls and loving it.

u/Aeiorg · 43 pointsr/gamedev

First of all, I wouldn't recommend learning game coding by looking at a codebase, the biggest reason being that all games are different and are using different techniques (obvious one being 2D vs 3D, but you have tons of differences between a FPS, a RTS, an open-world, etc).

I would recommend to find books or articles that explain why a certain technique is usefull, the coding language doesn't really matter, the technique itself is what is important (As you are saying it's for learning purposes and I don't think it's quite interesting to understand data-driven programming, cache optimization or 3D APIs optimization for C++ when you are first trying to understand a game structure).

I can recommend two really good books :

u/DOOMReboot · 42 pointsr/gamedev

I've been working on games for quite a long while so I picked it up here and there.

I haven't gone through this particular series myself, but I've browsed through it and his (thebennybox - everything he makes is high quality) series on creating a software renderer, and they are fantastic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss3AnSxJ2X8&list=PLEETnX-uPtBXP_B2yupUKlflXBznWIlL5

This is by far my favorite book:

https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Architecture-Second-Jason-Gregory/dp/1466560010

I'd recommend thebennybox's video series first, the book may not be quite as beginner-friendly.

u/inkjetlabel · 41 pointsr/KotakuInAction

She was a stand-up comedian? The autists at Encyclopedia Dramatica have really fallen down on the job, then. That is mentioned nowhere in her entry.

I'd also be curious to find out what exactly it was she "created" or "innovated" in 2015. Her being a creative type and all. The only thing that comes to mind for me is one of the articles in that The State of Play book. And that was all about how Depression Quest GOT created, so it is hardly "creative" in its own right.


> She now heads Crash Override, a nonprofit designed to help those suffering from severe online abuse.

Just checked. Website still not up.

u/mysticreddit · 25 pointsr/gamedev

First, I would buy

  • Game Engine Architecture, Second Edition

    What you do next is going to depend on what kind of game you are creating. Remember an game engine is only a tool used to solve a higher level problem: (Em)power a game

  • Without context you won't focus.

    Are you creating a 2D game? A 3D Game? Let's walk through an example. Pick a game to clone. Let's say we want to write a Minecraft-like game but use modern OpenGL. i.e. Using shaders. How would you start?

  • Create an OpenGL window -- windowed mode
  • Add fullscreen support (optional)
  • Load vertex and fragment shaders
  • Draw a triangle using the identity projection matrix and identity modelview matrix
  • Create a Matrix Class
  • Create a Matrix Stack
  • Add support for a Camera
  • Add keyboard support to move the camera, either absolute along the principal X,Y,Z axis or relative along the camera's DOF (Direction of Flight)
  • Add mouse free-look support
  • Draw a cube
  • Bind a texture
  • Draw a textured cube passing uv texture coordinates to your shader
  • Create an initial hard-coded world say 64x64x64 with only 2 block types: Air & Dirt
  • Iterate through the voxel (representation) tessellating into triangles (presentation)
  • Create a texture atlas and add basic font support
  • Create the start of a hud -- print off the camera's location using your font print()
  • Add picking (what block should be highlighted when the user mouses over it)
  • Add support so the player can add blocks --> update the voxel data, re-tesselate the triangles
  • Add support so the player can remove blocks --> update the voxel data, re-tesselate the triangles
  • Add support to render a 3D model (Static Mesh)
  • Import loading a static mesh from disk
  • :
  • Keep adding stuff that you want to see in your game.
  • Audio? Add player footsteps.
  • Multiplayer? Add networking.

    TL:DR; You should always be asking yourself this question:

  • What is the next thing I need to add in order to ship a semi-professional-level quality game?

    Hope this helps.

    Edit: Updated the philosophy.
u/sibilith · 24 pointsr/audioengineering

The Master Handbook of Acoustics is a solid choice.

You can apparently get the Fifth Edition for $10 used.

u/moarthenfeeling · 22 pointsr/gamedev
  • Learning Lua and moving most of game logic in scripts. Iteration is a lot faster and there's a nice degree of separation between the game and the engine
  • Using entity-component-system approach. Gives nice structure to every aspect of game objects and makes it easy to combine them without code duplication
  • Getting rid of code duplication. DRY is incredibly important: it's easier to modify your code and make sure you don't add bugs by changing thing in one place and forgetting to change it in another place
  • Not using non-const globals. I was misled at first by people saying that having global World struct with some common stuff is ok, but I found out that it's a lot cleaner to pass arguments around and using as less references/pointers stored as members in another classes (e.g. if you have a Level class and want RenderingSystem to draw it, it's better to pass Level to draw function than having RenderingSystem store pointer to level). Not using globals help make code a lot less modular and do specific things instead of doing everything. Not to mention bugs that happen when you change some global's state in a function...
  • State Machines. Reusable states are the best for DRY, transition tables are great and readable (a lot more than giant switch/else-if statements everywhere)
  • Actions Lists. It's very easy to express sequences of actions with them without having lots of bools like isMovingToSomePlace, having enums or state machines to describe the state of cutscene/complex action.
  • Reading Game Programming Patterns and Game Engine Architecture. The amount of great information in these two books is just incredible.
  • Learning modern C++ and using it everywhere. The code is cleaner, safer, more readable. Using smart pointers = no memory leaks or who-owns-what confusion, std::algorithms are easier to write and read than some loops, using auto, etc.
u/dominusludi · 22 pointsr/gamedev

I find tutorials to be decent for learning how to perform simple tasks which don't require much variation or novel problem solving. As it turns out, making games is pretty much the exact opposite of that. I know from experience that it can be frustrating to find information on stuff like architecture and system design for games, but a lot of that is pretty much tribal knowledge, learned by professionals on the job or by hobbyists as they make projects.

I recommend reading articles on Gamasutra for more advanced topics, and I also recommend the book Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory. I think really the best thing you can do is try to do a more complicated project and as you run into problems you have trouble solving on your own, then research that specific topic. It's worth trying to solve the problem on your own first though, as while it may involve reinventing the wheel somewhat, it's also the best way to learn.

u/Turilas · 19 pointsr/gamedev

Might as well start this with a book for programmers despite not having fully read it but it has given me a lot of insight on many things about game engines and how things should be done.

Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory


u/my_password_is______ · 17 pointsr/gamedev

> do I need to learn one of Unreal/Unity to work for a game company?

no

build something in C or C++ or even java

have you read this ?

https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Architecture-Second-Jason-Gregory/dp/1466560010/

or

http://www.gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html

have you learned opengl https://learnopengl.com/

have you read any of the books suggested here

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/5te5t5/which_books_would_you_recommend_for_game/

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/63sxr3/what_books_are_in_your_game_dev_library/

are you familiar with the concepts here

http://www.gameprogrammingpatterns.com/game-loop.html

https://gafferongames.com/post/fix_your_timestep/

http://www.koonsolo.com/news/dewitters-gameloop/

you might want to consider watching his videos

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrOv9FMX8xJE8NgepZR1etrsU63fDDGxO

^ those are all C++

or the first 43 videos of here
https://www.youtube.com/user/handmadeheroarchive/videos?flow=grid&view=0&sort=da

videos "Handmade Hero Day 001 - Setting Up the Windows Build" through "Handmade Hero Day 043 - The Equations of Motion"

^ those are all in C

the important thing is to just start making something

learn, develop skills, and build a portfolio

read the story of Stardew Valley
https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile

^ no unity, no unreal .. just a CS grad teaching himself to make games


u/xiaorobear · 15 pointsr/SRSGaming

The creator of Dys4ia (and Mighty Jill Off, and other games, Anna Anthropy) actually wrote a book related to this subject, called Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form. Which I haven't read, but I'm sure will interest you.

u/DarQraven · 15 pointsr/gamedesign

One thing you can do to keep these things under control is to purposely limit yourself in your design. Almost any CCG in existence has some sort of underlying design principles that guide what a card can and cannot be, or what a certain faction in the game can and cannot do or be good/bad at. How strong the average creature is, versus how strong the average weapon will be. How many turns you want the game to last, what expected deck size would be and how many cards you want to draw on average per turn.

The magic color pie is an example of one such limitation. Certain colors are good at certain things and not so good at other things. In addition there are the general playstyles that Magic's core design enables such as control, aggro, etc.
There is also some base level balancing for monster cards: a monster of a given strength will typically cost X mana, whereas a monster with a lot of utility will not typically also have high attack.

When you have these core rules in place, it becomes a lot easier to design new cards and get their initial stats right. When a new monster's attack is 3 higher than the average, you already know that it's gonna have to be expensive or have some other significant drawback. You'll already know not to give abilities that are typical of green cards to a new red card unless you have a good reason to do so.

For any given game, what these limitations and guidelines are is going to be radically different, so I can't help you much there. Generally though, you want a decent level of theoretical balancing on these core systems before you even begin to think about designing any detailed cards. Getting into the details before you know how and if your core systems work is a great way to waste a ton of time. Most of all, you need to have a goal for the card you are designing. What is is intended to achieve in the game? What strategies do you want it to enable or counter? From there, and with good core systems, the card will partly design and balance itself.

---

As for "pre-balancing", there are a couple tools available.

  • Mathematics and modeling. For a given game system, it is usually possible to model it in some way that can predict how it will work. Often these models relate only to an isolated part of the game. For instance, it is possible to model how the amount of lands available to a player in Magic will increase over a game. It is possible to model how economies in a game like Starcraft will generally work. It is possible to model how deck-cycling cards will affect the player's economy. Etc. If you are interested in this kind of model, this is a great starting point.
  • Try to design your game based on the choices you want your players to make. The general flow of the game and the phases you want it to go through. The kind of experiences you want to offer. Create your core mechanics from there. Don't get into "cool ideas" for specific cards, units or maps before you have this absolutely nailed.
  • Lots and lots and lots of playtesting. For every card that you design, someone will find a use that you didn't intend or think of. Sometimes it doesn't lead anywhere, other times it breaks the game. Make sure you have some idea of where dangerous areas in your design space are. Varying between 3cost/2attack monsters and 4cost/3attack monsters isn't gonna break the game. Adding an ability that allows you to re-play another very powerful event might. Be careful with the second and take steps to focus your playtesting effort on the second kind of problem.
  • Analytics, if you have the option. Gather tons of data on what people are playing, how they're playing it and how it's working out for them. If possible, start doing this long before you ever release anything. Something might feel broken or imbalanced to you but be perfectly fine on average. Or vice versa. Only data can really show what's going on on a larger scale.
u/TwinfoxDev · 14 pointsr/gamedesign

There are quite a few good book on this topic, that I would recommend, like Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design, or Justin Gary's Think like a Game Designer. These books describe the process way better than I ever could, but I'll try anyway.From my personal experience I always start from an idea (hey, wouldn't moving fortresses be awesome?), then I start to think about what exactly fascinates me about that idea. Then I try to capture the awsomeness in game mechanics. From there I create a list of what has to be done to test the mechanics, do that (plus some eye-candy because I'm a visual person) so I have something to test. When I have something to test, I try to analyze what doesn't work and fix that (not in code, but in paper). And start the process again.

So basically once I have an idea, it's this loop of creating/refining mechanics, implementing them, then testing and analyzing them. Then I go back to refining.

If you often suffer from scope creep, there are several methods to battle that. Like setting yourself a deadline, always cutting a mechanic when you add a new one, etc. Don't be afraid to throw something out (it's not lost you can use the idea/mechanic in another project). A game is way better when it knows what it wants to be and throws away everything that doesn't contribute to that core experience (I mean they could add RPG elements to Call Of Duty Campaigns, but they don't because that's not what the game is about).

Also if you don't like your code, that's 100% normal. when you look back at something you've made, you'll always be able to spot something that you would do differently now. That's because you've learned new things since you started . I'm programming for nearly a decade now, and when I look back at code that I've written a few months ago I'm always like "Eww, why would anyone write code like that?". So don't be afraid to make mistakes and don't continuously refactor code. Make something, learn from it and do it better next time.

I hope that helps!

​

EDIT: spelling

u/oddible · 13 pointsr/gamedesign

For design, get the combo of Jesse Schell's Book of Lenses and Deck of Lenses.

For dev get Nystrom's Game Programming Patterns

u/B-VOLLEYBALL-READY · 13 pointsr/KotakuInAction

An estimated 252 sales on Amazon - http://www.novelrank.com/asin/1609806395

u/kommando208 · 13 pointsr/books

It ties back to the concept of restriction as a source of creativity.

To see this fully illustrated, read "Racing the Beam", which is largely concerned with how the basic and confined platform the Atari 2600 provided to the first game programmers directly inspired and influenced modern definitions of genre and expression in the medium.

u/Nuclear-Cheese · 12 pointsr/gamedev

I think Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory (Naughty Dogs Lead Programmer) is a really good book for Game Devs working in programming. Not sure how it compares to 3D Game engine Design since I haven't read that. But the book by Gregory is really good and covers a lot in depth.

u/lockedcc · 11 pointsr/gamedesign

Personally, I can recommend "The Art of Game Design" to you. It covers a lot of topics and is also a good entry point.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Lenses-Second/dp/1466598646/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540218109&sr=8-2&keywords=art+of+game+design

u/againey · 11 pointsr/gamedesign

That sounds like a "kitchen sink" way of development. Keep adding features whenever the play testers sense a gap. It'll never end.

I'd contend that the healthier process would be to have a very clear concept of what the game is about at its core. With NMS, a plausible core could be "exploration". Then, whenever there is a perceived gap, the first question is if filling that gap will contribute strongly to the core. If not (or sometimes even if so), then ask a second question: What is causing the feeling of there being a missing feature? Is it possible to actually cut the feature that leads to the wish for the missing feature? Trim the fat, leave only the leanest meat clinging to the bones, so to speak.

I'm pulling pretty heavily from Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design, in particular "The Lens of Unification":

> To use this lens, consider the reason behind it all. Ask yourself these questions:

> What is my theme?
>
Am I using every means possible to reinforce that theme?

u/SupremeReader · 11 pointsr/KotakuInAction

Apparently the book was changed into "Untitled" and by "Anonymous", with a release date at the end of 2030. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crash-Override-Inside-Gamergate-Internet-ebook/dp/B01AS3WJZM

Were you mentioned in https://www.amazon.com/State-Play-Creators-Critics-Culture/dp/1609806395 ?

u/jarkyttaa · 11 pointsr/truegaming

Besides the obvious standards, there's quite a bit out there. Reality is Broken is quickly becoming my go-to book for introducing people to talking about video games. If you're less focused specifically on video games, then Hamlet on the Holodeck is basically required reading for any discussions about interactive narrative and Pervasive Games: Theory and Design gives a great introduction to pervasive games, which are definitely different from video games, but there's a fair amount of overlap in good design principles there.

u/ginsweater · 10 pointsr/gamedev

There are a number of resources on early game development. If you're interested in Atari 2600 games (games were 2K or 4K of ROM, the system had 128 bytes of RAM) there's a wonderful book called Racing the Beam:

http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X

It goes deep into the technical details of several Atari games.

There's also been a lot written about the Apple II Prince of Persia, as Jordan Mechner released the source on Github a couple years ago:

https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II

Fabien Sanglard has been doing a detailed code review on his blog.

u/Idoiocracy · 10 pointsr/gamedev

Thanks for the book link. He is also coming out with a 2nd edition in July this year.

As for them not having producers with strictly that job title, I recall a story by a Naughty Dog programmer that he observed one of the senior programming leads working on some basic user interface code close to the game's shipping deadline. He was surprised at the time that the lead was writing code that would typically be done by a junior programmer at other companies. He told the story to illustrate that the idea of doing whatever grunt work it takes to ship a title and a feeling of responsibility for a feature from start to finish is pervasive at Naughty Dog. Jason Gregory also said that you can look at it as them having more producers than any other company, rather than none, since everyone shares the responsibility.

In a similar vein, Valve is famous for having a relatively flat structure with no managers.

Of course, every company is different and Naughty Dog's approach is not necessarily superior. They can get away with it because they hire high caliber employees. What works for them may not work for most.

u/TheAdventMaster · 10 pointsr/learnprogramming

You want example code? View the videos of the guy who rebuilt Cave Story (or at least parts of it, with a level editor, enemies, etc.). Or check out Handmade Hero. I think there's a Handmade Quake now, too. If you're really serious about game engine design, buy the book.

The reason I suggest other people's stuff is I spent a lot of time building code bases I called engines, not building actual games. I've made and published exactly one complete game that has about 10k views on Newgrounds.com right now.

There are better people to get advice on what to do right from. I'm a professional web developer now and know plenty about where I went wrong.

But I'll gladly chime in more advice if you're willing to hear it. I'd say the biggest difficulty people have when writing any complex code (whether it's games, infrastructure systems or business applications) is you reach a certain point where knowing how to code isn't enough. You have to know how to think critically about problems. That goes back to the problem space vs solution space ways of seeing things, which isn't really taught in school.

Games are a really difficult problem, that also have really difficult solutions. If you just straight into the solution space (let me start coding modules, oh, I probably need something that renders fonts at angles, etc. etc.) you're not going to get anywhere. In order to build complex things like games, you have to get better at programming for sure in order to make so many things work together, but unless you get really good at figuring out your problem space - what exactly it is you're trying to actually solve -you're going to waste a lot of code and time.

And that's one reason most people suggest you start very small. You should be able to code something like Pong in less than a day, probably less than an hour for sure. Even something like Extreme Pong should be mostly easy for you to churn out. But many people struggle with that.

As an aside, I will say that writing a library to perform easings made my life a lot easier. A lot of what takes place in a game can be considered an "tweening animation" of a value from one state to another.

https://github.com/Pritchard/FB-Easing

https://github.com/Pritchard/FB-Easing/blob/master/Easing.bas

I used those for in-game animations, to stretch and skew objects, etc. but that's often more about bringing out the flavour of a game as opposed to the core mechanics. (Like you want an object that falls, but falls violently and shakes when it hits the ground? Chances are that doesn't make a ton of sense from a physics standpoint, so you have to script it. Easings would be one way to script the y-axis value to mimic that behavior.)

u/jhocking · 10 pointsr/gamedev

> What are the changes between the two editions?

Aside from being updated throughout for new versions of Unity (eg. WebGL deployment barely existed when I wrote the first edition) there's an entirely new chapter about 2D platformers. One of the most common cons in reader feedback (whether or not they liked the book overall) was there wasn't enough about 2D games.

> After finishing your book what book/resource should the reader focus on next?

I would say focus on learning game design. My book teaches how to program a game, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're able to design an original game. The afterword of my book mentions several books about game design (including Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell, who wrote the foreword of my book!)

u/maltezefalkon · 10 pointsr/gamedesign

The best high-level advice I've found on how to make a game comes from Magic: The Gathering's head designer, Mark Rosewater, called "10 Things Every Game Needs":
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/ten-things-every-game-needs-part-1-part-2-2011-12-19

On the more practical side, you might want to look at Brenda Brathwaite's Challenges for Game Designers:
https://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X

And in terms of local resources, Toronto is somewhat famous for its board game cafes, especially "Snakes and Lattes". You can try out all different kinds of games there:
https://www.snakesandlattes.com/

Hope that helps!

u/DiggyDog · 9 pointsr/gamedev

Hey there, I'm a game designer working in AAA and I agree with /u/SuaveZombie that you'll probably be better off with a degree in CS. BUT... don't give up on wanting to be a designer!

 

You should realize that it's not giving up on your dream at all, in fact, it's great advice for how to reach that dream. A designer with an engineering background is going to have a lot more tools at their disposal than one who doesn't.

 

Design is way more than just coming up with a bunch of cool, big ideas. You need to be able to figure out all the details, communicate them clearly to your teammates, and evaluate how well they're working so you can figure out how to make something people will enjoy. In fact, working on a big game often feels like working on a bunch of small games that all connect.

Take your big game idea and start breaking it down into all the pieces that it will need to be complete. For example, GTA has systems for driving and shooting (among many other things). Look at each of those things as its own, smaller game. Even these "small" parts of GTA are actually pretty huge, so try to come up with something as small as possible. Like, super small. Smaller than you think it needs to be. Seriously! You'll eventually be able to make big stuff, but it's not the place to start. Oh, and don't worry if your first game(s) suck. They probably will, and that's fine! The good stuff you make later will be built on the corpses of the small, crappy games you made while you were learning.

 

If you're truly interested in design, you can learn a lot about usability, player psychology, and communication methods without having to shell out $17k for a degree. Same goes for coding (there are tons of free online resources), though a degree will help you get in the door at companies you might be interested in and help provide the structure to keep you going.

 

Here's some books I recommend. Some are specific to games and some aren't, but are relevant for anything where you're designing for someone besides yourself.

 

Universal Principles of Design

The Design of Everyday Things

Rules of Play

The Art of Game Design This and the one below are great books to start with.

A Theory of Fun This is a great one to start with.

Game Feel

• Depending on the type of game you're making, some info on level design would be useful too, but I don't have a specific book to recommend (I've found pieces of many books and articles to be useful). Go play through the developer commentary on Half-Life 2 or Portal for a fun way to get started.

 

Sounds like you're having a tough time, so do your best to keep a positive attitude and keep pushing yourself toward your goals. There's nothing to stop you from learning to make games and starting to make them on your own if that's what you really want to do.

Good luck, work hard!

u/fermion72 · 9 pointsr/programming

Awesome. He plugs Racing the Beam, which is a phenomenal book and digs into more details.

u/Fribbtastic · 9 pointsr/gaming

this is the book

Chapter 5: Dynamic Layer, Page 68 which summarised the points I mentioned into cheaters (winning yes, game integrity no) and spoilsport (winning no, game integrity no)

I can only recommend this book, the first half is solely about game design and what developers need to look out for.

u/jaza23 · 9 pointsr/gamedev

The Art of Game Design - Jesse Schell

very few illistrations (if thats what your into). All theory, it's the go to book for game design


http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965

Level Up - Scott Rogers.

My personal favourite. Easy to read.


http://www.amazon.com/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X

u/FunLevel · 8 pointsr/Games

While I haven't read the books in this bundle yet, you might be interested in looking into Rules of Play. It's also published by the MIT Press and it is definitely a textbook on Game Design. It's currently a bit expensive, but it has gone on sale for much much cheaper in the past.

u/GamingJay · 8 pointsr/retrogaming

Thanks! :)

So the book is available here if you're interested. Someone has uploaded the list of games here if you just want to see what games are in the book. I also actually have a website letsplay1001.com as an alternative place to keep track of the games I've played but it's been hard to keep the YT series up and keep the website up to date (and admittedly it's a little out of date right now).

u/osetinsky · 8 pointsr/startups

I've learned enough to get by, so I can't say I've really "learned to code." But I love it and am going to continue beating my head against a wall learning it because I find it fascinating and challenging. It also ties into some of my musical interests (I studied computer music in graduate school).

Here are some of the things I've read. It doesn't happen over night. I would recommend reading in this order (or maybe read the first two ruby/rails items and then the first two JavaScript items). Pretty much all of my learning has been by doing, and I have tried to code my own small projects in between books.

Ruby/Rails:

  1. Ruby on Rails Tutorial (railstutorial.org)
  2. Agile Web Development with Rails (http://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-rails-4)
  3. Pickaxe (http://pragprog.com/book/ruby/programming-ruby)

    JS:
  4. eloquentjavascript.net
  5. Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (http://www.amazon.com/Professional-JavaScript-Developers-Nicholas-Zakas/dp/1118026691)
  6. Effective JavaScript (http://www.amazon.com/Effective-JavaScript-Specific-Software-Development-ebook/dp/B00AC1RP14)
  7. JavaScript: The Good Parts (people always throw this out as a good resource for beginners because it's short, but I found it to be the most advanced)
u/HardZero · 8 pointsr/gamedev

I found Level Up! by Scott Rogers to be a good book to recommend for people thinking about becoming a dev. Nice, funny writing style that doesn't get too technical.

u/CodeCodeCodeDurrr · 8 pointsr/gamedev

[Game Engine Architecture] (https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Architecture-Second-Jason-Gregory/dp/1466560010) is pretty good, and has C++ code in it (I think)!

u/octnoir · 8 pointsr/Games

He's right. One of the 'holy grails' of game development books is "The Art of Game Design - A Book of Lenses"

Jesse Schell starts off by saying before you start designing a video game, start designing a board game because if your mechanics can't be explained or are too complicated for a board game, they just won't work in a video game.

u/Ilovebananarama · 8 pointsr/dwarffortress

I feel obligated to link to the book on proc gen, co written by the creator of Dwarf Fortress.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1498799191/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_WXb5BbJ35M53M

It isn’t a coincidence how you feel about it.

u/Bozar42 · 8 pointsr/roguelikedev
u/tchuckss · 8 pointsr/gamedesign

I highly, highly, highly recommend Challenges for Game Designers. It is focused on tabletop/boardgame design, but I think the fundamentals of system design are so damn good and applicable to digital games very easily. It'll give you a better mechanical understanding of game design too.

u/cplr · 8 pointsr/iosgaming

Yeah, you can't just slap a theme on a game though. The game mechanics and the theme need to work off of each other.

I recommend reading some books about game design. These two are both really good:

u/Baltazards · 7 pointsr/gamedev

I can only think about "Game Engine Architecture Second Edition" by Jason Gregory Lead programmer at Naughty Dog :
http://www.gameenginebook.com/
https://www.amazon.fr/Engine-Architecture-Second-Jason-Gregory/dp/1466560010

u/kalas_malarious · 7 pointsr/gamedev

Are you looking for how to make games? Not just programming, but actually make them? I have some suggestions, but they often aren't about programming. There is a million books about programming, but finding those that talk about the ideas and ways to successively improve is a better point to start from.

  • The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
  • Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games
  • Kobold Guide to Board Game Design

    Making video games is easy. Put the pitchfork down and let me explain. Anyone can open unity and load some assets and call it a game. Making good games is difficult, and even if you are not looking at card/board games, you should be prepared to test your game on paper. It is easier to make iterative improvement if you can look for mechanical and mathematical issues by scrawling some notes on paper cards.

    For a book that covers both programming and game design, I also suggest this one.

    These books will cover the psychology, the pitfalls, etc that come with making a game. You do not need a class to make a game portfolio. You can often get things done faster by a book, because it's goal is to teach as you read, not set a timer for 15 weeks. It can assume you will do it over 26 weeks or more if the book is huge.

    Anyway, this is a much larger reply than I intended. Hopefully these are informative. If nothing else, they are significantly cheaper than a class.
u/shizzy0 · 7 pointsr/proceduralgeneration

This is one of my favorite game design books and it focuses on procgen. It’s edited by the guy who made Dwarf Fortress and most of the authors are practitioners rather than researchers which is a perspective I like.

u/Sapiential7 · 7 pointsr/canada

Here it is

https://imgur.com/a/E6iuQzI

The book is called: Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form

Link to amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Rise-Videogame-Zinesters-Drop-outs-Housewives/dp/1609803728

The citation is from the first chapter, the file I found had no pagination.

u/cheesepencil_dev · 7 pointsr/funny

MDN updates more frequently than a book.

If you just need a reference, stick with MDN. If you want the book as a learning resource, it coud probably be helpful but I looked at both The Definitive Guide and Professional Javascript for Web Developers and liked PJ4WD better. non-affiliate amazon link

u/kyuubikid213 · 7 pointsr/gamedesign

I don't have any games under my belt just yet (working on one for class with a group), but Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers was a solid read.

The guy worked on God of War and the Maximo series among other 3D games, so that'd probably be helpful for you.

u/_djur_ · 7 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

This one was just released:
BGG redid their mechanics classification system based on this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Building-Blocks-Tabletop-Game-Design/dp/1138365491

u/alexleavitt · 6 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Yes, there are definitely some scholars that are pursuing projects like this, but I don't think they've necessarily congealed into a proper subdiscipline. You might find some more stuff done around "histories of technology" or archiving: for example, there are some that practice it, like those at Archive.org and people like Jason Scott of Archive Team, or practice in an artistic sense, like Olia Lialina.

As far as more academic scholarship goes, I'm thinking back to a conference a couple years ago to a panel I really liked on Computer Histories (see http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit7/subs/agenda.html for more details). Sandra Braman's work was really cool, and Kevin Driscoll is a classmate of mine whose work I really admire (another cool article he recently put out was a history of databases (From Punched Cards to "Big Data": A Social History of Database Populism). Nick Montfort, the moderator of that panel, has also done some cool work around video game histories, notably Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System.

u/raydeen · 6 pointsr/gamedev

I'd encourage anyone interested to check out Racing The Beam. It goes into detail how some of the early programmers got as much as they did out of the 2600. The chapter on PitFall! is really great.

u/invicticide · 6 pointsr/gamedev

An artist. :P

No but seriously, here are some things I'd love to be gifted as an indie game dev (if I didn't have them already):

  • Rules of Play. It's maybe getting a little harder to find at a reasonable price, but is a wonderful resource. Some people pan it as a beginner textbook, but as a 10-year game dev veteran I still go back to it occasionally and it reminds me about fundamentals I've let slip over the years. Worth every penny.
  • Envisioning Information. Not directly game dev related, but it's a definitive resource for the kinds of visual design problems we have to solve every day (and that so, so many game devs simply don't know anything about, sadly).
  • The Design of Everyday Things. You can probably get this in paperback for super cheap. It's old, and it's about industrial design, but more importantly it's usability. The core principles in this book should be the backbone of any game designer's education.
  • Got an excellent card/board game shop in the area? Gift certificate the fuck out of the bitch. (Video game devs loooove tabletop games. Yes, we're even bigger nerds than you thought.)
u/The_yulaow · 6 pointsr/programming

The book Professional javascript for web developers link

u/iamktothed · 6 pointsr/Design

An Essential Reading List For Designers

Source: www.tomfaulkner.co.uk

All books have been linked to Amazon for review and possible purchase. Remember to support the authors by purchasing their books. If there are any issues with this listing let me know via comments or pm.

Architecture

u/killthealias · 6 pointsr/Games

One of my favourite game design books actually makes reference to this. In the book Scott Rogers calls it the Triangle of Weirdness and uses it specifically to refer to writing a game's story

Characters - Activities - World
Pick one

He then uses The Wizard of Oz (Characters), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Activities), and Star Wars (World) to back up his statement.

u/SandorHQ · 6 pointsr/gamedev

On YouTube Brackeys channel looks really useful: short, no-nonsense videos.
Additionally, you can find true gems of wisdom on GDC.

I'd also like to recommend a book about game design (in general): Level Up! -- The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers.

u/BaconWraith · 6 pointsr/opengl

If you don't mind reading or shelling out a bit of money, Game Engine Architecture is still a great resource

u/sjbrown · 6 pointsr/RPGdesign

I recommend The Art of Game Design as a great resource for this specific question:
https://smile.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Lenses-Second/dp/1466598646/

And if you don't want to spend the money, here's a hot tip: download the "Deck of Lenses" app on your mobile device. It's basically an extremely summarized version of the book, organized into a "deck". As you consider your resolution mechanism, flip through cards in the deck and ask yourself, "how does this lens apply? is my mechanism successful or deficient when viewed through this lens?". Not all lenses are going to apply, but it's a very useful exercise.

u/eldub · 6 pointsr/programming

Land of Lisp. It's that good.

u/itsnotmyfault · 6 pointsr/KotakuInAction

Didn't Zoe Quinn publish like a year ago?

Grim Jim's book has been speeding along at NaNoWriMo speed. Something like 2K words per day at least. If I had put 1/4 of the shitposting effort that I put into Evergreen last month into writing about GG instead... I bet I could have rushed one out too.

Hell, why not everyone publish little books. Last time I wrote a book I had a few paperback proofs printed for like $2.50 each. I'm guessing that sending them off to Amazon wouldn't be particularly much harder, plus you can always just go for a $1 ebook version with no physical copies.

Edit: I found both https://www.amazon.com/State-Play-Creators-Critics-Culture/dp/1609806395/ and https://www.amazon.com/Haters-Harassment-Abuse-Violence-Online/dp/1612347665 Basically, Milo's full of shit, as usual.

u/daliuso · 5 pointsr/xna
u/joeswindell · 5 pointsr/gamedev

I'll start off with some titles that might not be so apparent:

Unexpected Fundamentals

These 2 books provide much needed information about making reusable patterns and objects. These are life saving things! They are not language dependent. You need to know how to do these patterns, and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out how to implement them in your chosen language.

u/saltytaco · 5 pointsr/gamedev

As always one of the most recommended books will help you: Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory It does require some programming knowledge however, but it will show you the inner workings of an engine and how they are made.

u/faehnrich · 5 pointsr/learnprogramming

A huge and detailed, but very good video series of an entire game engine and game is Handmade Hero.

I've heard the book Game Engine Architecture on a few lists as being good.

u/pehnn_altura · 5 pointsr/gamedev

That's a fantastic book! And, he just recently released a new version.

u/swirlingdoves · 5 pointsr/Polska

@1. Mysle ze pytanie ktore trzeba zadac sobie najpierw to "czym jest dobry game design". Ile ludzi bedzie gralo w dana gre? Ile pieniedzy gra zarobi? Jaki efekt bedzie miala na graczach? Ogolnie polecam fora czy nawet subreddity typu /r/gamedesign. Sa tez kursy oferowane za darmo online przez powazne uczelnie np MIT. Z ksiazek polecam Theory of Fun i The Art of Game Design

@2 Tak, spojz na Notch'a ;)

@3 Rob male, proste gierki. Polecam "game jams" Nie wiem jakie to popularne w Polsce ale w Internecie jest tego sporo i po krotce chodzi o taki "sprint" (na przyklad 24 godzinny lub jedno-weekendowy) podczas ktorego celem jest zrobienie gdy na podstwie jakiego hasla lub protych ktryteriow. Znajdz innych ludzi i zamiast samotnie, pracuj w grupie powiedzmy trzech osob co by sie wzajemnie motywowac.

u/7tryker · 5 pointsr/gamedev

Have you read Jesse Schell's Art of Game Design book? It's a great read for game designers if you don't have it as a reference.

In it, he gives you some good lenses to look through that encompasses almost every game design decision you should be making for your game. I am positive there is a lens in the book that you can look through for your game that addresses your unwillingness to bend reality to accommodate intriguing game ideas. Remember your audience isn't yourself or your own personal tastes, if something doesn't make sense for you, maybe prototype the idea and playtest it with some folks and then judge whether the idea is indeed enhancing the game experience, if so it shouldn't matter much if it makes sense to you or reality or not.

u/luciensadi · 5 pointsr/MUD

One of the most important aspects of game design is that the story should always be written first, with the design and technology then being informed by the story. What you need to do is come up with the game you want to make (which hopefully is also a game you think other people will have fun playing), after which you can create a design plan / feature list / implementation plan from that.

I suggest you read The Art of Game Design for general game design information and Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds for MUD-specific information. That's probably a good first step for getting you into serious MUD development.

Edit: link formatting

u/gamerkhang · 5 pointsr/gamedev

To be clear: are you interested in game programming, or game design? (I say this because the other post said you were interested in engineering, and I'm not sure that guy knew what he was talking about) While the two do go hand-in-hand, what discipline you will be practicing is very important to be aware of. If you are interested in game design (theory behind making games, regardless of whether or not they're electronic) then some books you'd be interested in would be Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design, reinforced by exercises from Challenges for Game Designers.

If you are interested in game programming, that would require some introductory programming knowledge before diving into it, and there are others who would know where to find books for that, like on the sidebar of /r/learnprogramming. I would not recommend diving into a game engine without some basic programming knowledge unless you use an engine like GameMaker (but even that is just putting it off to a degree).

u/NotRobot_Aero · 5 pointsr/gamedev

If you are going the book route, I have a few suggestions for you!

Not sure if he's a reader? Check out Challenges for Game Designers Basically a collection of game problems to solve, flexing those 'be creative within a bounded scenario' muscles that a lot of big dreamers don't have enough experience with.

Another solid choice is this one,
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Voices That Matter). In general it's talking about layouts/formatting, but super solid read for our industry as well.

Both of these are light and fun reads. If you think they might be interested in something heavier, I can post some in that vein as well.

u/sclv · 5 pointsr/programming

I've seen the finished book now and its truly beautiful. A great holiday present for yourself or anyone else that loves programming and pretty pretty drawings: http://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/1593272812/

Great review of it on slashdot too: http://books.slashdot.org/story/10/11/03/1238213/Land-of-Lisp

Edit: I should clarify that I'm in no way affiliated to the book/profit from its sales. I just think that it's awesome.

u/AguyinaRPG · 5 pointsr/KotakuInAction

Reminds me of this book. No points for guessing who wrote it.

u/Antidote · 5 pointsr/gamedev

If you haven't already I highly recommend Racing the Beam. It goes into detail about how the thing was programmed and how the constraints of the system informed gameplay.

u/Xenomech · 5 pointsr/gaming

The book, Racing the Beam, is a great look into the hardware and programming of the Atari 2600, and it talks a lot about this sort of stuff. It's fascinating.

u/dancthesexyduck · 5 pointsr/gamedesign

Another book worth adding
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Joris Dormans and Ernest Adams
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

u/iugameprof · 5 pointsr/gamedesign

I'll go ahead and recommend my own book. It's a bit intensive, and is primarily designed for university game design programs, but I've had good reports from many just getting started with game design using it too.

As others have said, Tracy Fullerton's book and Jesse Schell's are also very good. I don't know if either is going to give you the structure you might need though.

Oh, I'll definitely recommend Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development by Jeremy Gibson Bond. He takes you through the basics of both game design and development in Unity, which may be particularly helpful to you.

u/dgeisert · 5 pointsr/gamedesign

You can find a lot of art and music for free, just need to do some checking into the attribution requirements. My favorite site for this is opengameart.org.
That plus a Unity3D free (unity3d.com) and you should be ready to go.
Make sure to learn the C# way of doing things for the games, since most of the good plugins will be written in C#
I taught myself the programming aspects of it through youtube, google, and the scripting api.
I've only put out one minor game so far, and got some help on the art, but it wasn't too hard.
The hard part comes in when you want to have servers or interact with other APIs, then you are looking at a longer commitment and much more tweeking, since you have more than one debug point.
Start early on the habit of using state machines (http://jessewarden.com/2012/07/finite-state-machines-in-game-development.html). The first game you make will probably be a lot of spaghetti, but making a few really quickly, then starting over will help you understand a lot more about it.
for design i'd recommend Level Up! (http://www.amazon.com/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X) as it is really good at explaining the why of game design as well as the mechanics.
Lastly, don't be afraid of copying something at first, there is always a game like the one you are making. Put something together that you, and your friends, enjoy then try something a bit more novel next time. You won't make the next great thing on your first try.

u/eric_weinstein · 5 pointsr/ruby

> Failing that, are there any good cheatsheets/references for JS "gotchas" and unusual features that devs from other languages might not be familiar with?


There are entire books dedicated to this! (Also some entertaining talks.)


Here are some good JS books not aimed at total beginners:


  • JavaScript: The Good Parts
  • Professional JavaScript for Web Developers
  • Effective JavaScript


    Bonus (to give you a sense of the kinds of "gotchas" you'll find in JS):


    // Even though you pass in numbers, JS sorts them lexicographically
    > [5, 1, 10].sort();
    [ 1, 10, 5 ]

    // You "fix" this by passing in a custom comparator
    > [5, 1, 10].sort(function(a, b) { return a - b; });
    [ 1, 5, 10 ]

    // This probably makes sense to someone, somewhere
    > Math.min();
    Infinity

    > Math.max();
    -Infinity

    // Some things are best left unknown
    > {} + {};
    NaN

    > var wat = {} + {}; wat;
    '[object Object][object Object]'

    Here are a bunch more in quiz form.
u/adamzx3 · 5 pointsr/javascript

I can definitely relate, this sounds just like me last year! I've done things the hard way and it took me 5x longer. I also prefer screencasts to books. I always need to create a project to solidify those fresh skills, otherwise they'll be gone in a month. Also tutorials for things like Backbone assume you know how to use jQuery, Underscore, and things like REST, and JSON responses... this can quickly get confusing if your not familiar with all of these. My largest regret is not building enough practice apps in the last year. I really should have applied more by doing, instead of staying in the theoretical world.

Here are some insights that i've made and the courses/tuts/projects that helped me the most:


Learn the language first:


u/MrFrettz · 5 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

Hello, and welcome to /r/tabletopgamedesign!

I can see in the comments that you are keeping your idea intentionally close the vest. You don't need to worry about people "stealing" your ideas - that really doesn't happen for three reasons:

  • Everyone already has their own ideas they care more about. I'm not going to bother stealing your idea when I already have fifty-billion of my own.
  • The hard work is everything that comes after the idea. Game ideas are a honestly a dime a dozen, but taking an idea and chiseling away and polishing it until it's a finely tuned machine is the real challenge.
  • You literally cannot copyright game mechanics. I could release a game that is mechanically identical to Risk but used my own unique art and assets, and could probably get away with it. But, nobody would buy it, because Risk exists.

    Eventually, you will need other people to help make your game into a reality, whether it's working with a publisher, a manufacturer, or even emailing your art to [email protected] to print them at your local store. Careful! A rogue Staples employee / aspiring game designer might steal your stuff! /s

    If you really don't want to share, nobody here can force you, but the quality of advice we can provide will be much lower. FWIW, I'm not just walking the walk - I have a website for my game, IntraSolar that anyone can visit and download the rulebook for. I'll also be releasing a print-n-play version sometime soon!

    ---

    My #1 piece of advice, however, is that nobody will design your game for you. Game design itself is not a game in that there are no set rules, pieces, or paths. Your path is your own, and will be more rewarding if you take initiative and purposefully move down it, rather than waiting around for someone to guide you.

    For now, I can at least share with you some very high-level information that should help get you started. Looking at your user history, I'm going to assume that you have no-to-little experience with tabletop gaming, but this also could be a completely incorrect assumption.

    Books to Read


  • Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design by Geoff Engelstein.
  • The Game Inventor's Guidebook by Brian Tinsman
  • Probably most books on this page.

    Games to Play


    I'm going to recommend some boardgame staples. Many of these games are older, but all of them have been very well received in the boardgaming community and have valuable lessons to teach if you haven't played them.

    There are many other great games out there, many of which are heavier than this, but considering that you are (likely) new to the hobby, this is a great starting point.

  • Seven Wonders
  • Pandemic
  • Dominion
  • Splendor
  • Secret Hitler
  • Mysterium
  • Sushi Go!

    Podcasts to Absorb


    You can also find them on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

  • Ludology
  • Shut Up & Sit Down
  • Heavy Cardboard
  • Board Game Barrage

    Blogs to Follow


  • Boardgame Geek's Blog
  • The Geek Weekly
  • Meeple Like Us
  • Meeple Mountain
  • Punchboard Media
  • Stonemaier Games' Blog
  • Pandasaurus Games' Blog

    Creators to Watch


    These last two are more videogame-focused but still contain relevant & great ideas / discussions.

  • Shut Up & Sit Down
  • Board Game Geek
  • Watch It Played
  • Game Maker's Toolkit
  • GDC

    ---

    There are so many other great games and resources out there that I couldn't possibly hope to put together a comprehensive list, but these are my top picks for beginners. I frequently listen / watch / read many items on this list myself on a daily basis.

    Good luck on your journey, and I hope you open a window into your prototype soon!
u/zmobie · 5 pointsr/RPGdesign

This is more geared toward board games, but as far as analog mechanisms are concerned, you can't do better than board games.

https://www.amazon.com/Building-Blocks-Tabletop-Game-Design/dp/1138365491

u/itsthedraftstupid · 5 pointsr/cscareerquestions

make a game with XNA?

or maybe some books? So many more to choose from...

Head first C#

Learning-XNA-4.0

u/Arve · 4 pointsr/audiophile

How about a book? F. Alton Everest/Ken Pohlmann - Master Handbook of Acoustics

u/CuriousEar · 4 pointsr/audiophile

Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms is a superb book (the author is well known in the industry). Very detailed, very factual and all about how you'll hear the music in a room. Tons of data and graphs from studies and measurements. Deliciously, also has details on how the specs of a product can be manipulated. You can see a shorter paper by the same author at Loudspeakers and Rooms for Sound
Reproduction—A Scientific Review
.


Master Handbook of Acoustics is also good.

u/krahenke · 4 pointsr/gamedev

One of the best resources out there, especially for Patreon supporters. I found this book to go hand-in-hand with this, I'd even go as far to say it's a must read, with great examples and modern practices.

https://www.amazon.com/Multiplayer-Game-Programming-Architecting-Networked/dp/0134034309

u/BlackjackCF · 4 pointsr/IWantToLearn

I know this isn't an Internet resource, but if you're interested in learning Unity and game design at all, this book by Jeremy Gibson is really helpful. He actually used to be one of my professors in college, and he was an amazing instructor. This book is a great resource to get started. I know it's a bit of an investment, but definitely something you won't regret.

u/davidNerdly · 4 pointsr/web_design

Just some I like:

Dev


  • [You Don't Know Javascript (series)(]https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS). Short and sweet mostly. Well written. Some are still pending publishing but there are a couple available now. I believe you can read them for free online, I just like paper books and wanted to show some support.

  • Elequent Javascript (second release coming in november). Current version here if you are impatient. I have not personally read it yet, waiting for the next revision. I recommend it due to the high regard it has in the web community.

  • Professional JavaScript for Web Developers. Sometimes called the bible of js. Big ole book. I have not read it through and through, but have enjoyed the parts I have perused.

    Design


    (I am weak in the design side, so take these recommendation with a grain of salt. I recommend them off of overall industry cred they receive and my own personal taste for them.)

  • The Elements of Typographic Style. Low level detail into the art and science behind typography.

  • Don't Make Me Think, Revisited. I read the original, not the new one that I linked. It is an easy read (morning commute on the train was perfect for it) and covers UX stuff in a very easy to understand way. My non-designer brain really appreciated it.

    below are books I have not read but our generally recommended to people asking this question

  • About Face.

  • The Design of Everyday Things.

  • The Inmates Are Running the Asylum.


    You can see a lot of these are theory based. My 0.02 is that books are good for theory, blogs are good for up to date ways of doing things and tutorial type stuff.

    Hope this helps!


    Battery is about to die so no formatting for you! I'll add note later if I remember.

    EDIT: another real quick.

    EDIT2: Eh, wound up on my computer. Added formatting and some context. Also added more links because I am procrastinating my actual work I have to do (picking icons for buttons is so hard, I never know what icon accurately represents whatever context I am trying to fill).
u/olenbluu · 4 pointsr/gamedev

I would love to add Level up by Scott Rogers (https://www.amazon.com/Level-Guide-Great-Video-Design/dp/1118877160) to the mix. I'm​ also writing for video games on indie scale tho.

Scott Rogers book is also about level design and that's important part of story telling in video game medium. For most, a lot of text is going to be dismissed by a lot of players so lot of the storytelling is good to come from somewhere else. Visuals, level design, character design etc. You need to learn from the start a good script format that is easy to understand for you and someone else reading. You can find a lot of formation online and even BBC scripts to read if you want from http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/

Fundamentals like many here has stated are good place to start. Story crafting, plot devices and analysing your favourite games, movies I and TV series. Maybe check http://tvtropes.org/ and find your favourite game protagonist and read up what tropes writers used on them and how it shows.

Games as a story telling device are mix of visuals, plain text and user interaction and that mix is what makes a story in a video game. That's why a lot of video games have not so immersive story as script writers are tend to bring to the mix later in the development when level design has maybe been set in stone and coded.

I assume you want to make a story script for a game. I would recommend learning a formation for a basic film script or use celtx.com straight away because it's easier for you to get into scene thinking and also for your future co-workers. Celtx.com is free script writing tool, you should look up. (https://www.celtx.com/index.html)

And also read all comments above about learning fundamentals and skills to analyze the story arcs and storytelling. To write you must first read.


u/Orthak · 4 pointsr/mylittleandysonic1

The first thing that I would say is: If you're thinking or making something bigger than a Pong clone, dial it way back. Your not going to make something fantastic, or Hell even good, straight out of the gate. Think of one idea that you have, and stick only to that. Make something very small, you can always build on it as you progress.

As for resources, they're limitless. There are tons of engines, assets, tutorials, book, and anything else you'd want. I'll make a small list of things here to get you started, but I strongly suggest looking for other things that you'd need on your own. Research and critical tinging is paramount in this hobby/profession.

Engines:

  • Unity - Very powerful and free 2d/3d engine. Uses mainly a JavaScript dialect and C# for scripting. The asset store is a great built-in resource
  • GameMaker - Surprisingly powerful 2d only engine. Uses it's own language for scripting, and has excellent drag-n-drop scripting. It's been a while since I used it, but it was great from what I remember.

    Art:

  • OpenGameArt - I've used tons of assets from this site. They range in any quality/type that you could need.
  • Kenny.nl - Wonderfull asset packs, I've used one of their UI packs and it was great. I think these are also the guys that post free stuff to /r/gamedev every now and then.

    Music/Sounds:

  • FreeSound.org - Great resources. I've used many sounds from here, and they usually have just what I need.

  • as3sfxr - Create your own chipsounds! I've mad a bunch of stuff here if I needed something that sounded a bit less organic.

    Tutorials:

  • Cooking With Unity - Is fantastic. I've followed almost all of these, and I loved them. He does a really good job explaining the concepts, and the scale in difficulty isn't too seep.

    Books:

  • A Book of Lenses - I haven't gotten too far into it, but what I've read so far is great. Wonderful info on game design.

  • Game Programming Patterns - This is an awesome book to get into the programming aspect. The examples are written in C++, but can be implemented in any language. Also: The web version is totally free!

    That's about all I can think of quickly. It should be enough to get you off the ground.

    Have fun, and good luck!
u/RoguelikeDevDude · 4 pointsr/gamedev

Book suggestions? Now that's my jam.

Out of all the books i've read, here are my recommendations regarding game programming:

Eric Lengyel's Books (only one out so far). This is aimed at game engine development, but if the 2nd onward are as indepth as the first, they will be amazing fundamental knowledge. Also, they're not thick, and jam packed with information.

Game Programming Patterns. The only book that comes more recommended than this is the one right below it by Jesse Schell. This book is fantastic, but you should write one or two small games to really get the most out of this book. You can also read it online on his website free, but then you don't get a pic of him and his dog on the back cover.

Book of Lenses. This is your intro/intermediate dive into game design. There are a lot of game design books, if you only read one, it should be this one.

Gane AI By Example. This book is a hodgepodge of fantastic techniques and patterns by those in AAA. There are other books on the series (like Game AI Pro) which are similar, but in my opinion (at least when I read AI PRO 3), they're not as good. But more knowledge is never bad.

Truthfully, as I sit here looking over all my books, those are the only ones i'd consider mandatory for any seasoned developer. Of course plenty of developers get by without reading these books, but they likely pick up all the principles listed herein elsewhere, in bits and pieces, and would likely have benefited having read them early on.

Here are a few others that I do recommend but do NOT consider mandatory. Sorry, no links.

Unity in Action. Personally, I recommend this or a more interactive online course version (udemy.com/unitycourse) if you want to learn unity while having a resource hold your hand. Having read the book, taken the course, AND taken Unity's own tutorials on the matter, i'd order them in order from Course being best, book second, videos from unity third. But none of them are bad.

Game Engine Architecture. This is the king for those who want a very broad introduction to making a game engine. It comes highly recommended from nearly anyone who reads it, just so long as you understand it's from a AAA point of view. Game Code Complete is out of print and unlikely to be revisited, but it is similar. These are behemoths of books.

Realtime rendering. This is one I haven't read, but it comes very highly recommended. It is not an intro book, and is also over 1000 pages, so you want this along side a more introductory book like Fundamentals of computer graphics. Truth be told, both books are used in courses in university at the third and fourth year levels, so keep that in mind before diving in.

Clean code. Yeah yeah it has a java expectation, but I love it. It's small. Read it if you understand Java, and want to listen to one of the biggest preachers on how not to write spaghetti code.

Rimworld guy, Tynaan sylvester I believe, wrote a book called Designing Games. I enjoyed it, but IMO it doesn't hold a candle to Jesse Schell's book. Either way, the guy did write that book after working in AAA for many years, then went on to create one of the most successful sim games in years. But yeah, I enjoyed it.

Last but not least, here are some almost ENTIRELY USELESS but interesting diagrams of what some people think you should read or learn in our field:

https://github.com/miloyip/game-programmer

https://github.com/utilForever/game-developer-roadmap

https://github.com/P1xt/p1xt-guides/blob/master/game-programming.md

u/quantumproductions_ · 4 pointsr/gamedev

Blaaaaargh quit focusing ideas! Start writing code! Playtest!

/r/gamedev is a heuristic process. You can't just plan out everything and expect to make game from thinking alone. You have to code and then playtest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYXInr3N5UQ&t=3s

This talk is "Going with the grain", comparing gamedev to cutting wood. It helps to go with the grain of what your medium (computer, input methods) are good at. Work with yourself.

Try treating your game as an intelligent artifact eg. https://www.amazon.com/Things-That-Make-Smart-Attributes/dp/0201626950/ . Let your programming be a dialogue with it and see what it wants to say.

If you're still having trouble and feeling stuck in "idea mode", put the programming aside and try "Challenges for Game Designers: non-digital exercises for video game designers" https://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X/ making board games built around mechanics like "Exploration" or "Randomness" or "Deduction".

TL;DR Execution is everything so start writing code and play your game.

u/goodbyecaroline · 4 pointsr/GirlGamers

Ana Anthropy, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters - Ana is a trans woman who writes more about game creation than gaming community, but I think she's awesome.

u/0xfefefefe · 3 pointsr/learnprogramming

I am a game engine programmer in the industry right now, do C++ and pick up Game Engine Architecture for a nice overview of many of the core subsystems of an engine. Java is a cake walk post C++, and still a worthy language - just not the industry standard.

u/spaghettu · 3 pointsr/gamedev

If you're planning on pursuing this as a career, there are tons of incredible opportunities for people experienced with lower-level 3D APIs. Making your own engine serves as a fantastic learning experience, and would be a huge investment in your future.

Below are some of my favorite books/resources right now that may help you along the way. These might not be immediately useful to you right now, depending on where you're at, but together they have more than enough knowledge for you to go far in 3D Computer Graphics.

  • Game Engine Architecture touches at least a little on all of the knowledge necessary to build a bare-bones 3D engine. It goes over the components of modern 3D engines, and how they work. It even has introductory Linear Algebra and Object-Oriented programming concepts. I think this book is pretty approachable for beginners.
  • The OpenGL SuperBible offers great insight and examples on using OpenGL optimally. Depending on when you start, however, you may want to consider a Vulkan book instead. I think this book is the best way to learn OpenGL as a beginner. There are plenty of free tutorials online on websites like learnopengl.com and open.gl as well.
  • Real-Time Rendering is a fantastic book that dives deep into different algorithms and techniques for modern 3D rendering. It's pretty advanced, but it's a very well-known book and exposes very valuable information on complicated effects found in modern 3D engines.
u/Serious_Casual · 3 pointsr/gamedev

Writing an engine isn't a trivial task. I don't mean to put you down or make you feel bad but it kind of sounds like you don't totally understand what a game engine does.

If you do want to write an engine, I would suggest starting with the renderer and expanding your understanding from there. The features of your engine depend upon what kind of game features you want to support. Particles? Visual effects? 3D sounds? Dynamic Resource management? and all of that behind the gameplay code.

Just get a square to show up on the screen. While you're working on that, check out a few books on game engine programming. There are a ton on amazon. This one is really good:

http://www.amazon.com/Engine-Architecture-Second-Jason-Gregory/dp/1466560010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453134607&sr=8-1&keywords=game+engine+architecture

If you need some more help getting started let me know! Engine programming is fun and rewarding but building one from scratch can be a monumental task.

u/BlackDeath3 · 3 pointsr/Physics

For anybody interested in a discussion on the modern usage of Quaternions with respect to game development, see Jason Gregory's Game Engine Architecture.

u/MightyDodongo · 3 pointsr/Games

Read Jesse schell's book and take everything in it to heart. Pick up game maker or unity/unreal, and start putting the book into practice. Amazon Link

This is going to be a hot take, but I'd consider going a step further and making your own lightweight engine using SDL; it will teach you not only a lot about programming, but also give you a lot more flexibility in the long run. Lazy Foo has an incredible guide on working with SDL Link

Feel free to DM me for advice. I'm not even close to doing this as a career (currently a software engineer and working on engine stuff on the side), but I can at least offer advice on programming and general engine work.

u/daybreaker · 3 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

There's an app called The Art of Game Design: Deck of Lenses.

Its a deck of cards meant to make you think about different aspects of your game. It goes together with the book Art of Game Design, but can be used separately.

u/Pogotross · 3 pointsr/gamegrumps

I think Arin likes The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Second Edition and either he or Jon liked Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation.

Personally my favorite game design resource is either Mark Rosewater's design articles or his podcast. I prefer his podcast but both covers most of the same information. MaRo is the lead designer for Magic: The Gathering so a lot of the articles are about MtG specifically or about tabletop games but nearly all the general design podcasts are worthwhile. Most importantly, he has around twenty years of successful (and unsuccessful) design under his belt, so he isn't just talking in vague generalities or theories. He has examples backing up pretty much everything he talks about including, and maybe most importantly, times he thought he was doing the right then and messed up. I think anyone interested in game design should listen to the "Ten Things Every Game Needs" and "20 Lessons" series. You can hear his GDC version of the 20 Lessons here.

*: But the absolute best thing you can read on game design is a gamemaker tutorial. Theory is useless without execution.

u/GeniDoi · 3 pointsr/gamedev

If you want some more information about what makes a game a game, The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell covers a lot of game theory such as what makes a game fun amongst many other conceptual ideas. I would highly recommend it.

u/Diabolical_Fox · 3 pointsr/proceduralgeneration

I do know of this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Procedural-Generation-Design-Tanya-Short/dp/1498799191

But I don't know how it is. I've actually been meaning to ask about it here one of these days. It has the great Tarn Adams of Dwarf Fortress name on it but I don't know how much of him is actually in it. And I honestly don't put much trust in amazon reviews anymore.

u/magmasafe · 3 pointsr/Games

If this is a topic that interests you I highly recommend Procedural Generation in Game Design by Tanya Short and Tarn Adams. It's a collection is essays by devs about procedural elements and how they interact with and influence design.

u/serinity · 3 pointsr/gamedev

While software and programming are valuable, a foundation in thinking like a designer has been more important in my experience.

I recommend Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite. I've used this book as an instructor for an intro to game design undergrad course, but it should work as well for a younger audience. The activities are designed to teach critical thought about games and prototyping, and require no special equipment or skills to complete. And it's the way a lot of studios begin the design process -- with pen and paper, or a whiteboard, prototyping and play testing ideas before investing in engineering time.

The challenges are quick, fun, and allow you to jump right in to designing game systems.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1542453313/ref=mp_s_a_1_1/147-2061481-7178413?ie=UTF8&qid=1494701669&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=challenges+for+game+designers&dpPl=1&dpID=51tUh1y6F1L&ref=plSrch

u/Rubuler · 3 pointsr/gamedev
u/dwapook · 3 pointsr/gamedev

Here's some stuff to check out..

Challenges for Game Designers- https://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469790243&sr=8-1&keywords=challenges+for+game+designers - A good overview and tool for learning various gameplay mechanics..

Level Up: the Guide to Great Video Game Design - https://www.amazon.com/Level-Guide-Great-Video-Design/dp/1118877160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469790273&sr=8-1&keywords=level+up+video+game+design - A nice overview of game design in general, which is good to know even if you're only pursuing level design at the moment

Game Maker's Toolkit - https://www.youtube.com/user/McBacon1337/videos - A really good series on game and level design

Reverse Design Series - http://thegamedesignforum.com/books/books.html - Books that deconstruct games in order to learn from them.. I'm going through the Super Mario World one right now and learning some nice things from it..

Some Reddit posts..

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/comments/35rvec/puzzle_design_how_i_do_it/ - I found this helpful back when I first read it.. o.o;

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/4remqy/a_fast_and_simple_method_for_writing_compelling/ - Nice stuff to keep in mind when designing story flow in levels..

Deviating a bit here.. but..

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/23oxp6/build_a_bad_guy_workshop_designing_enemies_for/ - A nice breakdown of enemy types in mostly 2D platform style games.. but a good reference

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3p3z05/game_feel_why_your_death_animation_sucks/ - Some game feel videos

u/Droidaphone · 3 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

Challenges for game designers is a highly recommended book, although it is not designed to be used with kids. Might have good exercise ideas, though.

Edit: also, will there be time to play games? Playing some simple games and breaking down the mechanics involved, like deduction, set collection, drafting, etc, could really be illuminating.

u/hickory-smoked · 3 pointsr/boardgames

I've just started reading Challenges for Game Designers. It comes highly recommended.

I would also suggest looking into Cheapass Games and their theories on design, which are largely about reusing components common to all games.

u/MITGameLab · 3 pointsr/IAmA

This course is just intended to be introductory, so yes, there's plenty of things to learn after this first step.

The most important goal is to figure out how you can keep practicing, and for that you need to be able to share and discuss your work with others. If you manage to find local game designers while taking this course (e.g. fellow participants of 11.126x) the next step might be to start a project with them. I also love game jams, which are like game hackathons. The Global Game Jam happens every year in late January, and if making a game in 48 hours sounds appealing to you, it's a good challenge.

There are quite a lot of good books I'd recommend. Challenges for Game Designers (Brathwaite/Romero & Schrieber) is probably a good second step after our class, especially if you're focusing on card/board game design. If you're looking for reading that's focused on more digital design, look at Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton.

Also, I have a whole lot of classes on MIT's other online courseware site, OpenCourseWare! Just search for "Philip Tan".

u/Mole12a · 3 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

Challenges for Games Designers is a book I regularly recommend when people ask me for a book.

Otherwise it's just lots of work, Games Design is like a muscle it gets easier and stronger through use.

u/jlapegna · 3 pointsr/gamedesign

Run through the exercises in this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/158450580X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1411126640&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40. They are all non-digital games, but that's they best way to start to understand how to design games. Each chapter goes over some key concepts and then presents challenges that enforce them.

u/kt24601 · 3 pointsr/programming

The website recommends "Practical Common Lisp," which is fine, but I found Land of Lisp! Game Programming to be an easier read.

u/infectedketchup · 3 pointsr/audioengineering

Get yourself a minor in mechanical (or possibly even seismic if your school offers it). Opens up anything dealing with transducers or how sound waves behave in a medium within a space.

Maybe pick yourself up a copy of Modern Recording Techniques to get a feel for what's going on hardware wise in the field. If you want to do more with the actual acoustics side of it, then grab Master Handbook of Acoustics. As a former EE major (I split before I graduated), I've also found Practical Electronics for Inventors handy to have around, even if only as a quick reference for things. Even has some theoretical refreshers in there if memory serves me correct.

If you find that you want to get into working with instrument amplification, then I'd recommend picking up Ultimate Bench Warrior since, to my understanding, tube circuits aren't really dealt with at the university level anymore.

Hope at least something in here is helpful.

u/GloomyToadd · 3 pointsr/gamemaker

It is a different way of making games for sure.. Takes a lot of practice. I have spent the last 8 months doing almost nothing but multiplayer programming. I have some random videos about various aspects on it. I will just link some content here. In addition, I have just created a UDP framework for making multiplayer games. It simplifies writing your buffers and handles connection management (something you must do manually when using UDP).

​

GloomyNet Intro (Ongoing Series):

https://youtu.be/7GRh3bjG9zY

​

Talk about a lot of essential multiplayer concepts here:

https://youtu.be/9dNIy_mXUU4

​

THE MULTIPLAYER BOOK (In C++ but lots of useful concepts):

https://www.amazon.com/Multiplayer-Game-Programming-Architecting-Networked/dp/0134034309/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539322352&sr=8-1&keywords=multiplayer+game+programming

​

THE BLOG POSTS FOR MULTIPLAYER:

https://gafferongames.com/

​

You will need to learn about data types, buffers, UDP (unless you are planning to do a smaller game.. you can use TCP). Learn about reliable packets, unreliable packets, and then... you can start..

​

​

​

u/realgronne · 3 pointsr/gamedev
u/tragomaskhalos · 3 pointsr/programming

Not for nothing is this book called "Racing the Beam" :)

u/Ezreal_As_lt_Gets · 3 pointsr/Games

Bioshock 1 & 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction & Blacklist ran heavily modified versions of Unreal 2.5, with Bioshock taking a few things from 3 that were able to be ported back to the older engine (mainly graphical effects for the water and fire). Once you know your way around an engine you can really make it do some absurd things within it's limits. While not technically dealing with game engines a good book on this is Racing the Beam, which basically shows you how the Atari 2600 was made to play nothing more complicated than Pong and everything after the first two years or so of the system was people having to essentially perform magic to make it do what they wanted.

u/gamerhetor · 3 pointsr/Gaming4Gamers

Many of the suggestions on this list are great (Koster's "A Theory of Fun" is especially good in my opinion), but one of the best books I've read is Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman's "Rules of Play".

In some ways it's an introduction to game design for designers, but it's way more than that - it touches on the philosophy behind "play" and "games," histories of gaming, personal anecdotes, insights from famous designers and way more.

You can ind a PDF of it very easily on Google, but I think buying it is very, very much worth it.

Also, as a shameless self-plug, I did my PhD work on videogames so I'm happy to talk about resources etc. - PM me or reply and we can chat about it!

u/thrakhath · 3 pointsr/gamedev

Rules of Play is an amazing book, it's a shame you haven't read it. Its one big drawback is that it focuses very little on video games in particular and goes in-depth on what separates games from non-games, and how various kinds of games are constructed.

It may not be useful to someone looking to get their hands dirty and start throwing Flash at the Internet, but it's a very good "big picture" book when you want to know more about the philosophy and mindset of building games. How to encourage behaviors, how to subtly direct play so your players don't get lost or confused, how and why you give feedback via play mechanics, and things like that.

u/absolutedestiny · 3 pointsr/gamedev

For basic Ludic principles, you will probably want to read Rules of Play at least.

Software isn't important (yet - you will be led to that by your programming), being able to draw isn't important though it can make things easier when you are on your own (you will need for sure to know how to use Photoshop or Gimp), actually making things and working out what is fun is important. For that, I'd recommend, while you are learning the basics of programming, making card games and board games. Then, once you have some programming basics, try and make a computer game - either an implementation of one of your physical games or to try making your own versions of classic games (lightbikes, pacman, breakout, rtype, pretty much every game made before 1985 that isn't Elite can be made by a beginner). You can also try focusing on making something classic but playing with one element of the gameplay and seeing where that takes you.

u/r0bbie · 3 pointsr/gamedev

Have to add another recommendation for The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell. A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster is also a very good, accessible read (and heavily illustrated, which is always nice!)

Finally, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals is good for a more exhaustive, technical look at game design theories.

u/tanyaxshort · 3 pointsr/gamedev

For game DESIGN, I personally like A Book of Lenses and Rules of Play. I didn't get much out of Theory of Fun, and the internet seems to like Level Up! but I haven't read it.

And none of those teach you really about game DEVELOPMENT -- the process, gameplay architecture philosophies, the pipelines, the team structures, the milestones, the industry jargon. The closest I've seen to that is having a games producer de-code chapters of Rapid Development for how it relates to games, back before I joined the industry and had my trial by fire. :)

Do you know what kind/platform/genre of game you're making, and what size the team is?

u/Jay_Santos · 3 pointsr/brasil

(Re)lendo o Rules of Play, livro sobre game design bem interessante.

http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play-Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp/0262240459

u/adrixshadow · 3 pointsr/gamedesign

> a 1 person RPG

Do note that making a good JRPG combat without a party is way more hard. Your better of with rouguelike mechanics for one character.

JRPGs without the tactics grid could be considered the purest form of a economic engine discussed in the book.

But you don't need to read it. Really you only have a few factors to analyze. The enemies and their abilities, the players and their ability and whatever resources it has like health,mana,tp,time/turn-order,items.

It's all about things that you shouldn't do which all boils down to don't make things boring and repetitive with filler combat, and things should be properly paced so as to not frustrate the player.

You can have a element of attrition and resource management where its all about conserving your resources. I believe Desktop Dungeons is the purest form of this that is pretty much a puzzle. A Dark Souls flask system on checkpoints would work well with this concept so that it won't punish players too much and make the game unbeatable and gives you more leeway on the resources.

u/alttoafault · 3 pointsr/interactivefiction

I think what your talking about is a systems focus. I just read a book on this topic, I think it summarizes quite well what your thinking about. It's called Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design. I definitely recommend checking it out, I found it very inspirational as a designer.

u/LtKije · 3 pointsr/gamedesign

I wholeheartedly recommend Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development by Jeremy Gibson.

It's a really hands-on book and focuses a lot on the iterative cycle of design -> prototype -> test -> redesign.

It also gives a really good intro to Unity development so you can get stuff moving right away.


Disclaimer: I was Jeremy's TA for several years while he taught at USC, so I'm a little biased. But I saw him take students with no design or programming experience at all and - over the course of a semester - get them to create some pretty compelling games.

u/wingchild · 3 pointsr/Games

Your criticisms are valid; Limbo was a puzzle game with few mechanics and limited player engagement. Compared to other puzzle titles it is lacking (it's no Portal, for sure); compared to other games released in 2010, it is not involving. Limbo is a short experience (two to five hours), and it's exceptionally short for the money ($15 on release). Your criticism reminds me of Will Freeman's review in The Guardian, where he calls the game a "traditional platform-jumping puzzle title" and notes "much of its brilliance is the work of smoke and mirrors".

Yet I think the criticisms are only touching on part of what made Limbo an interesting experience.

The limited mechanics and world interactivity reminded me of Another World (or Out Of This World, depending). Playing Limbo took me back a step to several games of yesteryear, reminded me of them, and showed me what an experience like that could be like remodeled in a new engine.

I thought the grayscale presentation was a striking choice, given how graphically-driven modern games tend to be. I liked the minimalist feel of the environment, and I thought the game did a good job of establishing and sticking to the tone set by the art. The game feels very, very lonely, as though the boy is trapped between worlds, much as the title would suggest.

The use of lighting was key; when you're working in grays all you really have is light and shadow, so you've got to make the most of it. There's a scene where you're holding on to a bug that's trying to fly up towards the light, but the leg you're on breaks, trapping you once again; later, when you encounter the spinning blades, lighting reflects them at massive size in shadows behind you, making them seem even more fearsome and lethal than they already are. I thought this was very nicely done.

I thought the sound design was spot on, from the gentle sounds of wind or water, to the more rumbling background tone that sets in when you first encounter the stabbing arms of the spider-creature. Sound also really made the "HOTEL" sign scene for me, as you can hear and see electrical transformers exploding as you try to cross the letters. This does a great job of adding to the tension.

In terms of story, the game gives you nothing to speak of; there were some promotional materials that read "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters Limbo" - but that's it. The game doesn't otherwise explain itself. As I played I felt the journey was the important and transformative element, more so than any "reward" at the end, and I felt that way right up until the final shot.

As an older human, I've attended my share of funerals. I've lost family over the years. I'm dreading when I first lose a friend or lover, and I can't even consider how I'd feel to lose a parent, let alone a sibling that I've known since they were born. I do know each loss takes part of me with them - the dead keep the parts of me I've given to them.

I had felt like the boy was already dead early into the game, but when you get to the final scene, and she's there - there's this pause, and the boy does not approach. What can you say? You've come all this way; are you even sure this is what you want? Did you make this trip because you were unable to come to terms with your loss, unable to achieve peace? How did the boy even start this journey? There's a visual of the boy breaking to pieces as you go through the final jump -- was this emblematic of his heart shattering when his sister died? Does his literal falling to pieces give us his reason for being here?

The last scene takes place in the same sort of forest as the opening. Post-credits, if you watch all the way through, the background remains on the same shot - though no bodies are present, and we can hear the buzzing of flies. Did the sister die there? Did the brother die there? Did he kill himself in an effort to find her, to be reunited? There's room for speculation and interpretation.

I thought quite a bit about the end of Limbo, and about death, and about family. I had a strong emotional response to the work; I found it impactful, meaningful. The game teased quite a lot out of me - I'm over 4,200 characters into my reply and I feel like I could still go on at some length.

Not bad for a two-hour title.

I measure Limbo's "goodness" by the impact it had on me, and how often I thought of it, or of how I still think of it, so I've no doubts at all - it is a good game.

But I'm evaluating by a different set of criteria than the mechanical, too.

---

One extra thought.

There's a pretty fine read out there called "1,001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die". It covers video games from the late 1970s up through very early 2010. Snippets about each title were written by a battery of reviewers, many of them British (allowing access to perspective on titles that might not have made it across the pond, such as PC titles released only on the ZX Sinclair and the like).

When they chose to include a game it was because something about the title was unique, special, innovative, or trend-setting. In some cases they might add a second or third title in a series while skipping the original; in others, they add obscure games I'd never heard of, though I consider myself well versed.

Point is, part of their consideration includes the time and place in which a title existed. As an example, Asteroids (1979) was an important title in gaming history, a landmark title for its era, though almost no aspect of it holds up today.

Limbo may be something of that order. When it was released in 2010 it was a special sort of title. It reached 3rd overall on XBLA that year. (The top two were a little more conventional; Dead Rising 2 took the #1 spot, and Trials HD had #2. #4 went to another indie darling - Castle Crashers.)

Despite the short runtime and relatively high launch price, Limbo connected with a great many people. And it got a whole lot of words out of me on an otherwise sleepy Tuesday morning, nearly six years after it's release.

Limbo was a good game.

u/philintheblanks · 3 pointsr/webdev

I agree with learning vanilla js, but I would add that you should be looking at things like the DOM specs. To me, it's like building a house. These are the things that all the houses (frameworks) are build from. You don't need to be able to build a house, but knowing the basics can save you from huge mistakes, or just serious time wasting. Knowing the basics means that you know what the frameworks are there to help with, which means that you can evaluate their weaknesses and strengths yourself, and then you won't need to ask other people what they think.


I'm currently working through Professional Javascript for Web Developers, and just the first few chapters I've covered have me blown away at how little I actually knew. I've done tons of online tutorials and courses, and this book blows them all out of the water completely. But keep in mind that I'm the type of guy who really hates not knowing how things work. I don't want to do something just cause "that's how you do it", I want to do something because "that's the best way to do it right now, here's why..."

u/jelleyboy7 · 3 pointsr/gamedev

Level Up! 2nd Edition by Scott Rogers - funny, accessible and packed with knowledge. Much lighter than The Art of Game Design if you're looking for an entry point.

u/thisisatempaccount93 · 3 pointsr/gamedev

I've decided that for my summer project before starting university I'm going to make a game with hopes that it will be somewhat similar to the kingdom hearts series.


As a 3D artist I have a lot of work cut out for me, especially considering I have about 3 and a half months to do this. I hope to do it all using just UE4, 3DS Max and Photoshop, being solo the whole time. Now I just need to go back through my old work to refresh some key aspects to game design and read this book again.


Wish me luck!

u/worldofeinsteins · 2 pointsr/WeAreTheMusicMakers

Find a copy of this and read the section on monitor placement

http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/mixing-secrets-small-studio

And/or a look at

https://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Everest/dp/0071841040

Literal chapters of information required before anyone can give you anything that resembles a helpful answer to your question, unfortunately. Acoustics are pretty complicated.

u/troy_civ · 2 pointsr/audioengineering

some general thoughts from my side:

  • I can recommend these two books:

  • room treatment without measuring in pointless imho, so I highly recommend renting a mesurement system for a day and figure out what the exact prolems are

  • you can use some FEM model to simulate your room acoustic situation in order to find possible speaker positioning and sweep spot, BUT it doesn't make real life measures superfluent and it is not trivial to set up such a simulation, because you need to know the physikal behavior of your walls, floor and cieling. But it's absolutely possible to get a first feeling, even as an non-professional.

    => only AFTER you have done this, finding proper treatment options and suggestions from other users will be sucessful

    Cheers
u/Visulth · 2 pointsr/gamedev
u/KenFlorentino · 2 pointsr/gamedev

I bought this one: https://www.amazon.com/Multiplayer-Game-Programming-Architecting-Networked/dp/0134034309/

It is pretty solid and goes into depth on both RTS and FPS games which require different ways of thinking about how to manage latency, packet loss, and other dynamics.

u/r41n__ · 2 pointsr/gamedev

There is this book that might help:
https://www.amazon.com/Multiplayer-Game-Programming-Architecting-Networked/dp/0134034309/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497045503&sr=8-1&keywords=multiplayer+game+programming
but this is general and not specific for GameMaker. As I recall GameMaker has some tutorial on this stuff but I am not sure.

u/EtanSivad · 2 pointsr/gaming

One more thing, of the thousand hours of programming, easily 100 hours went to squeezing the game onto the minisucle 8kb (or maybe this was one the 4kb carts). For anyone interested, http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299461261&sr=8-1 "Racing the beam" is a pretty fascinating study it what it took to program these older games.

u/stpe · 2 pointsr/retrogaming

Quite technical and highly recommended - Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System.

Does look into how limitations of the platform (Atari 2600/VCS) influenced the game design, implementation and creativity on the platform with several in-depth (down to looking at assembly code) case studies of a couple of games.

Very good read!

u/jmarquiso · 2 pointsr/truegaming

Rules of Play and The Game Design Reader by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman are great reads about the craft and art of play. Here they are attempting to establish a critical vocabulary to handle games as pop culture. If you're serious about taking games as an art, they're very interesting reads. The Game Design Reader is my favorite.

Also, heard some great things about Janet Murray
s Hamlet on the Holodeck. This was written around the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as a time when Adventure Games were king. It's interesting to me essentially because this futurist look at video games as entertainment actually doesn't follow the progression in the last 20 years. That is, until recently with Quantic Dream and Telltale games. That said, I've become even more interested in looking at Mechanics as vocabulary (see the other front page thread about Mechanics that tell a story).

Hope these help.

u/OpSmash · 2 pointsr/gamedev

A good starting point is to identify what you want to do exactly. Find your focus on what you plan on attempting, then think smaller. Most first projects are very ambitious (while good) can lead to you making something not worth your time, headaches and just frustration.

However with that being said, here’s a few ideas to help get you started. If you want to just jump in and get your hands dirty and start working on a visual level you can try these programs:

  • Game Maker / Studio GameMaker
  • RPG Maker RPG Maker

    More Advanced:

  • Flash Adobe
  • Unity Unity

    ---
    Alternatively in conjunction of playing more games in your lifestyle, I would highly recommend you start to read blog posts, writings and articles on game design, theories and practices as well what industry leaders are talking about. While most people who love and have a passion for games watch game reviews, you’re going to want to focus onto sites like:

  • GameDev.net Gamedev
  • Gamasutra Gamasutra

    ---
    A book you may want to consider picking up:

  • Rules of play Amazon link
    ---
    Back to your original topic about programming. While doing all of these so you understand what it takes to make a game, how a game shapes or how a game can be fun its time to start learning the important type. Which is the programming side. Now before you continue, programming isn’t always for everyone, but don’t let that discourage you. You may find while programming you love it, you may find you don’t like it. Programming is a tool which you can add to your arsenal of design and implementation and its smart to grasp the basics if you plan to get into game development even if you find yourself not savvy in it.
    The game makers I listed above each have a language that works with them. For example Game Maker has GML which is its primary language. RPG Maker has RUBY as a base and they use RGGS3 (I think that’s the current revision). Flash uses a scripting/programming language known as ActionScript 2 or 3 depending on what your accomplishing. Unity 3d uses C# and Mono, Javascript and I think another language but don’t quote me on that.
    Since you want to start from scratch the only advice I can give you is this. Don’t give up. Keep persistant. I would recommend that you start at an entry language that helps break down a lot of the tedious tasks and makes it more adaptable towards learning such as Python.
    Some resources:

  • CodecademyCodeCademy
  • Learn Python the Hard Way Learn Python the Hard Way
  • Invent with Python Invent with Python

    I hope to see questions popping up as your understanding the basics of Game Design and game creation. It is always good to see people entering the field and tragic when people give up. Remember, start small. Do not expect to make a Minecraft clone within the first few days of learning a programming language, you need to practice and start small. Chances are your first few games are going to be clones of Snake / Pong / Tic Tac Toe etc. These are learning tools to help you understand how its created, the logic behind it and building/stepping blocks into a solid foundation.
    Don’t give up and start learning everything you can. Apply yourself and keep moving forward and you will do just fine. Welcome to the club!
u/awkm · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Need more information. Is this a hobby? Are you trying to program a game or are you trying to design a game? And just FYI, programming is hard... programming a game is the hardest. There are many movie parts to game programming. Just be aware of that.

If you're a hobbyist and you want to learn how to make digital games, start with an easy to learn programming language like Processing. http://processing.org/

If you want to design games then pick up this book http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play-Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp/0262240459

If you want to jump into 3d, try out http://unity3d.com/. I recommend programming in C#.

If you're a hobbyist, you don't need to delve in super deep and use complicated tools. Processing is very friendly and was designed for graphic oriented designers to learn how to program. Unity3d makes it very easy to make 3d games with specialized IDE and interface.

u/kevodoom · 2 pointsr/IAmA

My recommendation for this would be twofold: Grab an Unreal 4 subscription and burrow through the ever-increasing collection of tutorials there. You'll learn the nuts and bolts of level development using the same tool the professionals use. To develop your design skills, there are three books I'd recommend you read, in this order: Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun, Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design, and Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman's Rules of Play.

Following these two tracks of learning the practical elements of game development along with the theory of why game design works the way it does will get you started on a good footing.

u/npcdel · 2 pointsr/RPGdesign

> I have no doubt that all of the other ones are amazing games.

Actually a lot of the games I mentioned are terrible or niche. I mentioned them because you need to play bad games to learn why they don't work. Basically, you need to have a vocabulary and literacy in games before you start designing.

Also, the "I'm only designing for my friends" canard (in addition to being the #1 backpedal the instant an amateur is challenged), is a bullshit defense because if you're designing for your friends and don't intend to publish then you don't need advice from us, just do your thing.

E: A few good books that you should read before designing anything: Robin's Laws by Robin Laws, and Rules of Play

u/raydenuni · 2 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

If you can get away with a required book, I would insist you use Theory of Fun. It's not about boardgames specifically, but more about what is fun and why games are fun. It's quite easy to read (every other page is a drawing), but it's excellent and deep. It would definitely give you a good foundation to go on and talk about games from a more educated standpoint.

"Why do you like this game?" "Ok, do you remember where the book says that's a fun thing to do?"

Or look at some critically acclaimed games and see why they fall under good design, or some popular, yet poorly designed games and why some people don't like them (Monopoly for one).

Scott Nicholson had a great video series called Boardgames With Scott that might have some useful videos. He's currently at MIT on sabbatical doing game design/teaching research (looks like maybe he just finished).

If you're looking for a book for yourself,

  • http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1
  • http://www.amazon.com/A-Theory-Fun-Game-Design/dp/1932111972/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3
  • http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play-Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp/0262240459/ref=pd_sim_b_7

    You'll notice a lot of them aren't specifically games, but deal with fun and play. It's important to understand those before you can talk about games. That is also a good topic. What is a game? How do you define it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game#Definitions
    I personally like Chris Crawford's definition, but you get a lot of backlash from the general public for such a strict definition, as if forms of interactive entertainment are somehow inferior if they are not "games."

    I'm just sort of rambling and vomiting thoughts here, but to summarize some topics I would want to go over:

  • History of games
  • Definition of a game
  • What is fun and play and how are those used to make good or bad games
  • Genres of games and how that affects design choices.
  • Pick a different game to teach and play each day/week? Perhaps at the beginning tell your students why a specific game is thought to be fun, and by the end ask them if they can recognize the major mechanics. You could start off a lesson this way and then revisit it at the end.

    Artificial intelligence could be an interesting side topic. Looking at search algorithms and how they are used to solve tic-tac-toe and how you use the EXACT same method to solve checkers or play chess and go (currently unsolved).

    If you do decide to talk about a variety of games, here are some I would suggest you look at:

  • Go, for its simplicity in rules and depth of strategy. I would consider it one of the most pure games.
  • Settlers of Catan for introducing euro-style boardgames to the USA and popularizing board games. Also involves heavy player to player trading.
  • The Resistance as a short-form hidden treachery and secret agenda social game.
  • Dominion as a game that introduced an entirely new genre that is now super successful. Also a good example of a multiplayer solitaire game.
  • Tic-tac-toe as a game whose depth ceiling is too low and complexity space is too small for humans.
  • Pandemic as a completely cooperative game (there might be a simpler game for this, not sure)
  • Can't Stop - a look at chance and how it can be used as an interesting core mechanic and not just a way to make things random


    As you can tell, I love stuff like this. Let me know what you think about my ideas, or if you want to talk more or throw ideas back and forth, feel free.

    Other sources:

  • http://boardgamegeek.com
u/GreatBlueHarron · 2 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

Play a ton of games. Try games that are outside of your comfort zone! the Book Rules of Play is great too

u/ElGamerBroChris · 2 pointsr/gamedev

I found "Level Up! The guide to great video game design" to be an interesting book that describes on what you should aim for in your game mechanics, enemies and such. Plus pretty easy to read, both in length and content.

I haven't read this other one, but I've heard Rules of play is a pretty good one too.

Another great source are youtube channels. My personal favorite is Extra Credits. I'm just about to get into the industry so it might be worth keeping that in mind ^^"

u/MrsWarboys · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

I don't see Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design get enough credit around anywhere;

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274

If you've ever played with Machinations, you'll know how cool it can be. This book goes into really deep mechanics that you can actually play with.

It's a bit dry, but it's the most comprehensive mapping of actual game systems I've come across

u/VBlinds · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

https://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274

This is the book that describes these concepts. I literally ordered this book a few days ago.

u/blindluke · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Game Mechanics is definitely helpful with understanding what the moving parts are, and it introduces a visual notation that I find useful in the planning stages.

By far the best tools to balance game mechanics is a spreadsheet and a working knowledge of math. Book on both might be helpful too.

u/Kenaf · 2 pointsr/gamedev

I think in general it is recommended to keep your day job while you're getting started. I was in your shoes too (though much older), I wanted to quit my job and just make games. I still do, but not having an income would suck. So I ended up deciding I'll keep my full time job and work hard in my free time, and so far it has been satisfying. With that said, I'm still working on my first game. It's good to have dreams, but don't do anything reckless I guess.

I got started by reading a book on game design and prototyping. To be more precise, it was this book. I learned a ton by reading it, though some of the later chapters are getting a bit dated and don't translate to Unity 5 so well. Despite that, I feel like I have a pretty solid foundation to work with and I've been pleased with my progress.

u/ViktorEvil · 2 pointsr/Unity2D

I am working through this

Game Design Prototyping and Development

I am enjoying it so far. I have done some coding before but the pace in the book is nice and slow

u/blue_cadet_3 · 2 pointsr/csharp

My local library had this book. I'm using it, its pretty good.

u/peterpunk99 · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

To the classics by Schell and Koster I would add one that goes from game design to working prototypes (and one could argue that prototypes are constitutive parts of game design):
Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C#

u/GameboyPATH · 2 pointsr/NoStupidQuestions

>There must be some rule or perhaps some kind of formula that enhance the enjoyability of a stage.

No single rule or formula, but several rules of thumb, and different approaches.

Some books on game design include Rules of Play, which breaks down games into a very fundamental perspective (imagine understanding an apple by analyzing its atoms), and Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development, which is much more functional, discussing the procedures involved with testing and tweaking your levels to be what you want it to be.

More specific to your case though (and easier to read), there's this guide for Mario Maker level design

u/LegendaryFrog · 2 pointsr/gamedesign
u/yamblaza · 2 pointsr/Unity3D

I've been very impressed with Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development by Jeremy Gibson. The first half of the book talks about game design in general, then goes into a basic overview of C#. The rest of the book consists of a series of tutorials that get increasingly more complex. I'm not sure how helpful the tutorials and programming info would be laying in bed but the game design stuff is definitely fun to read by itself without a computer.

u/k_Reign · 2 pointsr/gamedev

I don't know enough about the first book on the list to comment on that hahah, sorry! The book "The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses" is supposed to be pretty good according to the reviews on Amazon along with the editorial reviews.

I would also look more into "The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design" up there on the list. I only just checked these books our briefly (except for the first three and the Masters of Doom) so I don't know a lot.

I'm also adding this one to the list: Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design. It looks pretty promising and I've seen it suggested before!

Good luck!

u/ketura · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Game Design by Bob Bates covers a bird's-eye view of general game theory and the process of game development from beginning to end. It's very "readable" and gives you context to help you understand how your development process can help aid your particular design paradigm that you decide upon. If I recall correctly, it also goes over a lot of the different type of design documents that are often used in the industry.

Depending on how much textbook you can stomach, Software Engineering for Game Developers by John Flynt and Omar Salem is an interesting take on the whole game design angle by delving entirely into the source code development. It follows an actual game created by the authors and the entire process used from beginning to end in designing the engine. The game itself was shitty, but the code was immaculate and the process certainly gave me a lot to mull over and cherry pick for my own projects. Be warned, however, this book is as dry as a road trip in the Sahara and twice as long.

Besides these two, I can also definitely recommend Level Up! and The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses as previously recommended elsewhere in this topic.

u/aroymart · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Level up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design I see this in B&N every time I go there but i never have money to buy it, I've looked through it and it looks pretty nice.

u/Kaihzu · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

Level Up! by Scott Rogers - a great look at adventure game design.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/047068867X?pc_redir=1410179486&robot_redir=1

u/wafflesfordinner · 2 pointsr/gaming

You might want to check out this book.

u/ThePizzaDoctor · 2 pointsr/gaming

something like This?

u/Sabin10 · 2 pointsr/gaming

Try this book as a checklist.

BTW, I have you RES tagged as "Dies happy"

u/jwicked207 · 2 pointsr/learnjavascript

> Professional JavaScript for Web Developers

I don't know of any significant differences between editions but I'm using the 3rd edition(latest) published in Jan of 2012:

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-JavaScript-Developers-Nicholas-Zakas/dp/1118026691

u/FooBarBazQ · 2 pointsr/learnjavascript

I've heard great things about Jon Duckett's JavaScript and jQuery - Interactive Front-End Development. Apparently the book's binding completely blows (pages falling out even with very little wear and tear), but the content is supposed to be really great for people just getting started with JavaScript and struggling with some of the core concepts. This book is made for visual learners, who get more out of diagrams, analogies, and examples than from reading long, tedious blocks of text.

In other words, this book seems to be great for JavaScript novices (and programming novices) who just want to jump in, learn some basic concepts from a well designed and easy to read book, and start actually working with some JavaScript in the browser. From the book's Amazon page, each chapter is described as follows:

  • Breaks subjects down into bite-sized chunks with a new topic on each page

  • Contains clear descriptions of syntax, each one demonstrated with inspiring code samples

  • Uses diagrams and photography to explain complex concepts in a visual way

    Once you're a bit more comfortable, the go-to book for beginner to intermediate JavaScript learners is Nicholas Zakas's Professional JavaScript for Web Developers. It's a much thicker tome, but covers more concepts in more depth.

    This book is much more than just "pure JavaScript outside of the browser" (it also contains lots of info/examples for doing real things in the browser), but it does go into great detail about all the intricacies, syntactical oddities, and gotchas of ECMAScript, which you do really need to learn to become a fully competent JavaScript developer. This book is also written well and is easy to read, but it's not designed/presented as nicely or simply as Duckett's book. The Amazon page says the book is written for the following three groups of developers:

  • Experienced object-oriented programming developers looking to learn JavaScript as it relates to traditional OO languages such as Java and C++

  • Web application developers attempting to enhance site usability

  • Novice JavaScript developers
u/schm0 · 2 pointsr/learnjavascript

No, I have not yet approached the instructor about this. The entire book uses inline HTML event handlers. Unfortunately, I am not in charge of choosing the books for our curricula.

I've already started reading about event handlers in javascript, and I have been supplementing my own education by reading Eloquent Javascript and Professional Javascript for Web Developers. However, for my class we're forced to read the book and use its examples.

I've already pointed out that one of the examples, when using the text provided from the textbook and even after converting to HTML5, simply will not work at all in IE. In another instance, we were doing online introductions and I mentioned I was working through EJ and she started asking me about whether or not I thought it would be good as a textbook in class. I'm pretty sure she's aware of the flaws of the book, but just hasn't been able to settle on a modern replacement.

It's driving me crazy to know that I'm not learning standard best practices, but I just don't know how to proceed. Do I really have to be "that guy" that calls the teacher out on their textbook? Is it ok for me to ask that I create all my event handlers properly in javascript instead of the way the book teaches?

u/xbrandnew99 · 2 pointsr/learnjavascript

I guess it really depends on what you want to use it for. Though as it is primarily the programming language for the (front-end) web, i'll assume more or less towards that.

Do you have any html/css knowledge? I'd definitely agree with others that the best way to learn is by doing. This method of learning became a lot easier for me once I was able to start manipulating elements of a webpage; it became much more intuitive and concrete a learning experience. Some basic things to do may include storing html elements in JS variables, attaching events to these elements - for example clicking on en element will execute some code, manipulating other elements' css, creating or removing elements from the page. (the JS library jQuery will be your friend here)

I like this site: http://www.codewars.com/
You'll be prompted to complete challenges which actually accomplish a, small, but technically useful goal, such as writing a function which takes a string of text, and returns the string with each word in reverse order. This was a nice 'next level' for me after doing codecademy.

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, while lengthy, gave me a comprehensive and best-practice-filled ground-up walkthrough of basic JS. If you're comfortable with codecademy's JS course, this may be a good next step. I definitely felt a very distinct difference in my JS knowledge before and after going through this book.

The javascript jabber podcast was also pretty helpful to me in just listening in on experts in the field talk about the current state of JS. While my first months of listening, the discussions were 90% over my head, I picked up on the terminology, some popular tools, and just the JS environment at large. Easy enough to just have on in the background, commuting, whatever.

Finally, this subreddit, and sometimes r/learnprogramming have some helpful discussions to keep an eye out for.

u/ngly · 2 pointsr/web_design

JavaScript books I'd recommend:

JS Good Parts. Short read but interesting and important concepts covered.
http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers. Covers every detail of JavaScript in web development. Huge book with about 900 pages of information. This covers all the technical details from syntax to core concepts.
http://www.amazon.com/Professional-JavaScript-Developers-Nicholas-Zakas/dp/1118026691

I haven't read the one you linked, but have seen it around. It's probably good.

u/bradcliffe · 2 pointsr/learnprogramming

It will probably serve well enough off as a starting point. It looks to cover a broad range of topics as they pertain to computing, so it certainly wouldn't hurt if you're unfamiliar with those concepts listed in the syllabus. Perhaps such a broad exposure might help some particular facet of computer science really stick out to you as a road you'd like to travel down.

What concerns me is that the course is taught using a stripped down version of JavaScript. I'm not exactly sure what is meant by this--if it's an actual variant of the language or just a "don't bother setting up the template, here's the snippet for this exercise" type deal. CodeAcademy does a lot of the latter--which is fine, but again can leave you with a sense of doing something without truly knowing how to pull all the pieces together.

If you're set on learning just the language of JavaScript really well, bookmark 'JavaScript Is Sexy'. It's maintained by a fellow Redditor and has proven a comprehensive approach to learning the language correctly. Of the two books he recommends, you're definitely better off getting Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Zakas. Follow the course and advance through it the later stages of intermediate and advanced JavaScript. By then you should be feeling comfortable enough to dabble. Then start looking at frameworks (Ember.js, Angular.js, Knockout.js, Backbone.js) and possibly some server-side stuff like Node.js.

u/saturdayplace · 2 pointsr/javascript

I haven't got more that a handful of chapters in, but so far I really like Professional JavaScript for Web Developers

u/U3011 · 2 pointsr/web_design

Here's a good list I keep posting because people often ask the same question - not like it's a bad thing.

In any case follow the below, but I really suggest for total newbies to first go through the course Codecademy offers. It won't teach you much in how to do things but the syntax education is good. Follow their HTML and CSS courses and when you're done, create a site using just HTML and CSS. Once done, try to emulate a few of your favorite sites using just these two languages.

Once done you should check out the free 30 day Tutsplus courses on HTML/CSS and jQuery. At some point you will want to go back to Codecademy and take their JS course. Syntax and method of doing or starting certain things is important. It's incredibly easy to pickup the actual methods of doing things once your head understands the syntax used.

Any form of education that follows a hierarchical format makes for easy learning.
__


Codecademy isn't bad. It won't teach you much in the way of doing things but it does teach you the way to type out code, the general process and stuff. I can't speak for myself because I work as a professional developer and have been tinkering with code for 10 years now, but I did give the first lesson to one of my brothers. He's not great with computers or the Internet, but he was able to follow the first two sections of the basic HTML/CSS course and able to make his own site albeit very basic in nature nearly a month later (3 week gap following him doing the lessons). He was able to do a rough basic site of his Facebook profile, and he nailed it. It should open doors for you in terms of having the basic knowledge of how to do things. It'll allow you to read more advanced stuff and pick it up much faster than if you hadn't.

Below is a list I sent to someone on here a while back.

>
>http://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1eqaqo/best_books_or_online_resources_for_comprehensive/ca2w2dn?context=3



>PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition)
>
>Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional
>
>Read the second book, do all the examples, then go back to the first book. Pay a lot of attention toward array manipulation. When you're comfortable with that, get into OOP. Once you do and OOP clicks for you, you'll be able to go to town on anything. I've heard a lot of good about Jefferey Way's video lesson courses over at TutsPlus. I've never used them nor do I need to, but I've never heard a single bad thing about their video courses. Their Javascript and Jquery is a great starting point. This is great stuff too if you're willing to put in the time.
>
>Professional JavaScript for Web Developers
>
>JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: Activate Your Web Pages
>
>Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3
>
>The Node Beginner Book
> Professional Node.js: Building Javascript Based Scalable Software
>
>Paid online "schooling":
>
>http://teamtreehouse.com/
>
>http://www.codeschool.com/
>
>Bonus:
>
>http://hackdesign.org/
>
>
>I've got a shit ton (Excuse my French) of books in print and E-Format that I could recommend, but it would span a couple pages. Anything is easy to learn so as long is it's served in a hierarchical format that makes it easy to absorb the information. A year ago I started to learn Ruby and using ROR as a framework. I can say it's been quite fun and I feel confident that I could write a fully complete web app using it. I started node.JS a few months ago, but it's been on break due to being sick and some unexpected events.
>
>My knowledge is extensive only because I wanted it to be. I'm not gifted by any means nor am I special. Not by a longshot. Some people are gifted when it comes to dev and design, most are not. Most only know one or the other. I forced myself to learn and be good at both. I'm 23, I started when I was about 12. I'm only breathing more comfortably now. I know a load of people on here and other sites who make me look like complete shit.
>
>
>Also for what it's worth, sign up to StackOverflow. It's the bible and holy grail rolled up into one site. It's amazing.
>
>Also;
>
>Hattip to /u/ndobie
>
>> CodeAcademy
>
Team Treehouse
> CodeSchool. This is more programming but still very useful & has free stuff.
>
Tuts+
> Google. Probably the best way to find out how to do something specific.
>
This subreddit. If you have any questions about how to do something, like parallax scrolling, try searching for it, then ask, make sure to include an example of what you want if you don't know what it is called.

u/larprecovery · 2 pointsr/web_design

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118026691?pc_redir=1396283200&robot_redir=1

this book is like a religious experience

Also, look into the Smashing Library

u/torvold · 2 pointsr/web_design
u/seg-fault · 2 pointsr/learnprogramming

No problem. I think I answered all of your questions, then, but if you're still a bit shaky on anything, don't be shy to ask more questions.

If you're serious about good user interaction on your sites, I highly recommend JavaScript. I was in your boat too for a while. I didn't find any value in JS beyond making quick popups or input validation.

However, after working at my current job where I did much more client-side programming in JS, I truly appreciate the value of the language. It has evolved far beyond its initial intentions.

If you want to be a real JS guru, read this book cover to cover. Even if you don't want to be a guru, it is a very helpful reference:

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers

u/Invisig0th · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

Your question is based on some flawed assumptions, which makes it hard to answer. Any game programming 101 course will tell you that strict realism makes a terrible game. That's been known since video games were first invented.

Pretty much nothing you've ever seen in a video game is programmed to be "realistic". Take for example jumping. You've never seen a game where jumping was programmed as authentic jumping for a human body, because that kind of movement feels horribly flat and unresponsive in a video game. So instead, game programmers add things like acceleration curves, sticky platform edges, changing direction in mid-air, etc. None of that is realistic in the slightest, but it makes for a much more fun game. Even the most so-called realistic games routinely take this approach, it's pretty much universal. Realism is generally the first thing sacrificed when trying to make a game more enjoyable to play.

So if you are serious about this, I would strongly recommend you read some of the popular books explaining how to design and program a game. They deal with this issue extensively and early. Here's the one I had in mind regarding this particular question. I believe there's a whole chapter on this very issue.

Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design

u/robtheskygames · 2 pointsr/TGDRT

Not precisely, no. I own Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design which is pretty good, and does cover some building block mechanic type stuff. But it also has a lot on character design, story, and craft (like game design documents and stuff) as well.

u/sthmc · 2 pointsr/gamedev

This book breaks down gameplay mechanics, level design and such. It's a really fun read.

u/BraveNewCurrency · 2 pointsr/ChipCommunity

> I would like your help pointing (pun intended) me in the right direction

No, no, you want some pointers for what to do next.

You can't learn just by looking. You need to pick a goal, then try to implement it. When you have very specific questions, you can ask here or stackoverflow. Don't do something complicated at first: Start with a trivial game like tic-tac-toe. Get it all working end-to-end, then start adding features to transform it into something interesting.

But don't forget this is an entire Linux-based computer, so you don't have to only use the tools that came with it. There are 1000s of games for Linux, and hundreds of game-building environments. Plus, there are lots of languages (Python, Lua, Ruby, Go, NodeJS, etc), and plenty of ways to paint a GUI (i.e. SDL, OpenGL, etc).

In many games, they only use C++ for the low-level bits, then wire up the high-level logic with a scripting language like Lua.

P.S. I've heard this is a good book.

u/Jason_Wanderer · 2 pointsr/u_Jason_Wanderer

There was also another good quote about the "Mexican Pizza" strategy (which referred to some fast food chain having a pizza taco basically), which basically described taking two seemingly unrelated things, tossing them together and making something strangely appealing. Simple concept, but quite effective.

From this book, if you're interested. It discusses the game design process in a streamlined way, definitely helped me when I started learning about it all.

u/gengelstein · 2 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

In our mechanism book we call this "End-Game Bonuses".

("VIC-06 End-Game Bonuses" to be precise. Defined as "Players earn bonus Victory Points at the end of the game")

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1138365491

We also have a discussion on the difference between public goals and private goals in this chapter, but keep them under the same classification.

u/KindFortress · 2 pointsr/TGDRT

First off, thank you for mentioning the book - the Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design - that Geoff and I wrote. It's now available for pre-order, and should be out some time this summer. https://www.amazon.com/Building-Blocks-Tabletop-Game-Design/dp/1138365491/ It will offer readers a shortcut for learning about lots of mechanisms, and will help trace how basic ideas like Worker Placement get elaborated on by later designs.

​

I loved the too-brief conversation about playtesting that happened towards the end. To me, playtesting is the most opaque part of the craft and work of game design. I'm hoping to write my next book on the subject to help shed more light on how it works. From interviews and preliminary research, one thing I'm learning is that there are many ways to do it, and lots of different types of playtesting. The practice itself evolves along with the design.

​

​

u/kpdwyer · 2 pointsr/gamedev

yeah, you should be worried. substantial changes from 3 to 4, let alone 2 to four.
I used this:
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
but back in 3.1 days.

u/Dhraz · 2 pointsr/gamedev

I have been in the exact same boat as you. I'm about to start actually coding a game finally after a year of letting the idea stew. I have been reading a book on XNA 4.0 which does a great job of describing object-oriented approaches to constructing some basic components. Even if you don't want to code for XNA the structure of the code can be used in just about any language.

The author of the book hosts all of the source code for his tutorials on his website, so you could always look through those as well.

Here's a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620

u/Exce · 2 pointsr/gamedev

The AppHub tutorials are very helpful. As many suggest, starting simple is usually best. I probably should have stuck to a single screen game for my first try but instead I spent a lot of time learning how to use a third party library to help be import a level.

http://create.msdn.com/en-US/


Also, if you are looking for a book, I just got this book as suggested by many and its great.
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620

u/TheZManiac · 2 pointsr/monogame

My favourite XNA book was this one but the book only goes up to XNA 3 https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-XNA-Game-Studio-Unleashed/dp/0672330229 (source was updated for XNA4/MonoGame here http://chadcarter.net/xna-game-studio-3-0-unleashed-book-source-code-updated-to-work-with-monogame-and-windows-10/)

For XNA 4.0 I liked this one https://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620

Are there even any specific MonoGame books?

u/CodyDuncan1260 · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Game Engine:

Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory, best you can get.

Game Coding Complete by Mike McShaffry. The book goes over the whole of making a game from start to finish, so it's a great way to learn the interaction the engine has with the gameplay code. Though, I admit I also am not a particular fan of his coding style, but have found ways around it. The boost library adds some complexity that makes the code more terse. The 4th edition made a point of not using it after many met with some difficulty with it in the 3rd edition. The book also uses DXUT to abstract the DirectX functionality necessary to render things on screen. Although that is one approach, I found that getting DXUT set up properly can be somewhat of a pain, and the abstraction hides really interesting details about the whole task of 3D rendering. You have a strong background in graphics, so you will probably be better served by more direct access to the DirectX API calls. This leads into my suggestion for Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX10 (or DirectX11).



C++:

C++ Pocket Reference by Kyle Loudon
I remember reading that it takes years if not decades to become a master at C++. You have a lot of C++ experience, so you might be better served by a small reference book than a large textbook. I like having this around to reference the features that I use less often. Example:

namespace
{
//code here
}

is an unnamed namespace, which is a preferred method for declaring functions or variables with file scope. You don't see this too often in sample textbook code, but it will crop up from time to time in samples from other programmers on the web. It's $10 or so, and I find it faster and handier than standard online documentation.



Math:

You have a solid graphics background, but just in case you need good references for math:
3D Math Primer
Mathematics for 3D Game Programming

Also, really advanced lighting techniques stretch into the field of Multivariate Calculus. Calculus: Early Transcendentals Chapters >= 11 fall in that field.



Rendering:

Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX10 by Frank. D. Luna.
You should probably get the DirectX11 version when it is available, not because it's newer, not because DirectX10 is obsolete (it's not yet), but because the new DirectX11 book has a chapter on animation. The directX 10 book sorely lacks it. But your solid graphics background may make this obsolete for you.

3D Game Engine Architecture (with Wild Magic) by David H. Eberly is a good book with a lot of parallels to Game Engine Architecture, but focuses much more on the 3D rendering portion of the engine, so you get a better depth of knowledge for rendering in the context of a game engine. I haven't had a chance to read much of this one, so I can't be sure of how useful it is just yet. I also haven't had the pleasure of obtaining its sister book 3D Game Engine Design.

Given your strong graphics background, you will probably want to go past the basics and get to the really nifty stuff. Real-Time Rendering, Third Edition by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Haines, Naty Hoffman is a good book of the more advanced techniques, so you might look there for material to push your graphics knowledge boundaries.



Software Engineering:

I don't have a good book to suggest for this topic, so hopefully another redditor will follow up on this.

If you haven't already, be sure to read about software engineering. It teaches you how to design a process for development, the stages involved, effective methodologies for making and tracking progress, and all sorts of information on things that make programming and software development easier. Not all of it will be useful if you are a one man team, because software engineering is a discipline created around teams, but much of it still applies and will help you stay on track, know when you've been derailed, and help you make decisions that get you back on. Also, patterns. Patterns are great.

Note: I would not suggest Software Engineering for Game Developers. It's an ok book, but I've seen better, the structure doesn't seem to flow well (for me at least), and it seems to be missing some important topics, like user stories, Rational Unified Process, or Feature-Driven Development (I think Mojang does this, but I don't know for sure). Maybe those topics aren't very important for game development directly, but I've always found user stories to be useful.

Software Engineering in general will prove to be a useful field when you are developing your engine, and even more so if you have a team. Take a look at This article to get small taste of what Software Engineering is about.


Why so many books?
Game Engines are a collection of different systems and subsystems used in making games. Each system has its own background, perspective, concepts, and can be referred to from multiple angles. I like Game Engine Architecture's structure for showing an engine as a whole. Luna's DirectX10 book has a better Timer class. The DirectX book also has better explanations of the low-level rendering processes than Coding Complete or Engine Architecture. Engine Architecture and Game Coding Complete touch on Software Engineering, but not in great depth, which is important for team development. So I find that Game Coding Complete and Game Engine Architecture are your go to books, but in some cases only provide a surface layer understanding of some system, which isn't enough to implement your own engine on. The other books are listed here because I feel they provide a valuable supplement and more in depth explanations that will be useful when developing your engine.

tldr: What Valken and SpooderW said.

On the topic of XNA, anyone know a good XNA book? I have XNA Unleashed 3.0, but it's somewhat out of date to the new XNA 4.0. The best looking up-to-date one seems to be Learning XNA 4.0: Game Development for the PC, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7 . I have the 3.0 version of this book, and it's well done.

*****
Source: Doing an Independent Study in Game Engine Development. I asked this same question months ago, did my research, got most of the books listed here, and omitted ones that didn't have much usefulness. Thought I would share my research, hope you find it useful.

u/Mr_Bennigans · 2 pointsr/gamedev

> I think if I learn how to program with an aim to work as a software developer and make games on the side, is this viable after just turning 20?


There's nothing wrong with the age of 20. I started school at 20, graduated in four years, and found work as a software engineer right out school.


What you have to figure out is how to make the best of your time left in school: should you take a class or two on programming and graduate on time, or (more dramatically) change your field of study to computer science and spend a few more years in school? That's something only you can decide. If you want to finish your architecture program and graduate in a reasonable amount of time, I can assure you that your math and physics background will be enough to get you work as a software engineer, but only if you can actually program.


Part of working as a software engineer means being able to program in multiple languages. That's because it's not really about the language, it's about the logic. All languages follow certain patterns and while syntax or wording may change, they all share ways to implement the same logic.


It also means knowing what data structures to use for what scenarios. The phrase "There's no such thing as a free lunch" comes to mind. All data structures have advantages and weaknesses and no data structure is perfect for every occasion. Know the differences, know the performance impact, and be able to speak to them. This won't just help you write better code, it will help you land a job. Interviewers love to ask questions about data structures.


As a corollary to data structures, you also need to know your algorithms. You need to know the performance impact of different ways to search and sort, traverse graphs, and find the shortest path (particularly relevant for game programming).


You said you're learning Python and that's great. Python is a great way to learn how to program. It's dynamic, it's friendly, and it has a rich library. Learn Python inside and out, then pick another language and figure out how to do the same things. C++, Java, and C# are all pretty popular in the industry, pick one of those. Once you know how to program in a few languages, you focus less on minute implementation details specific to one language and more on high level abstraction shared across multiple languages. By that point, you'll no longer be speaking in code, you'll be speaking in plain English, and that's the goal.


I don't know many good free online resources for learning languages, I learned mostly out of textbooks and lecture slides (along with lots of practice). There are some links in the sidebar to some tutorials that are worth checking out. Beyond that, I can recommend some books you may want to read.


  • Algorithms in a Nutshell - one of the best quick references on algorithms you can read
  • C# 5.0 in a Nutshell - excellent language reference, aimed more at advanced programmers, though it's comprehensive in scope, covering everything from language syntax and structure of a program to more complex tasks like threading, multiprocessing, and networking
  • Learning XNA 4.0 - a great game programming book, teaches 2D and 3D game development using Microsoft's C# and XNA framework
  • Java in a Nutshell - another great language reference
  • Starting Out with Java - introductory programming text, has end-of-chapter problems for reinforcement, a little pricey so see if you can find a used older edition
  • Starting Out with C++ - another good introductory programming text from Tony Gaddis
  • Python in a Nutshell - I can't speak to this one as I haven't read it, but I have been extremely happy with O'Reilly's "... in a Nutshell" series so I suspect it's as good as the others
  • Learn Python the Hard Way - free online book about learning Python, begins with simple examples then teaches you how to break it so you know both sides of the story, wasn't as comprehensive as I'd hoped but it taught me the basics of Python
  • Programming Interviews Exposed - sort an all-in-one book covering lots of different topics and giving an insight into what to expect for that first interview

    EDIT: I added Programming Interviews Exposed because it's a good reference for data structures, algorithms, and interview questions
u/CodeTed · 2 pointsr/gamedev

So Game Engine Architecture looks pretty good, although it looks like it is for 3d game programming. Is there something like that, but for 2d game programming?

https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Architecture-Second-Jason-Gregory/dp/1466560010/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

u/w00tnes · 2 pointsr/learnprogramming

Maybe this book might help you with the essentials: http://www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Architecture-Second-Edition/dp/1466560010

u/TheBestOpinion · 2 pointsr/gamedev

>Game Engine Architecture, vol 2

Fuuuck that's a pricey book

u/overlysound · 2 pointsr/gamedev

I agree with your sentiments that game programming in Rust is new, so it may slow me down. But I' am in no rush to put out a game. I'd be very interested in really getting to know how game engines work; even bought a book. I' am also interested in learning Rust for its potential utility in my job anyway.

u/8a7e17035d · 2 pointsr/learnprogramming

What kind of games? Mobile games? Browser games? Desktop/console games?

If you're into building games entirely from the scratch and have it run on desktops and mobile devices, I'd suggest trying out the SFML framework (C++). They have some nice tutorials on their GitHub Wiki

Keep in mind that those are just the basics. If you prefer some more comprehensive literature, I'd recommend the following books:
Game Coding Complete
Game Programming Patterns
Game Engine Architecture

u/ThePopil · 2 pointsr/UofT

Hey! I'm doing the game design focus and have / am working at some indie studios.

The focus isn't nearly enough to get a job in the industry, you need to teach yourself a lot more.

  • Figure out how much dev work you want to do and how much design you want to do. There are positions that are mixtures of both.

  • You can do a one year course in design at some college after you graduate if it interests you. BE WARNED, no one cares about the degree, every design lead I've worked with has said this. This is about connections and making your own projects.

  • If you want to do dev, read this book: https://www.amazon.ca/Engine-Architecture-Second-Jason-Gregory/dp/1466560010. It's like the bible for game dev.

  • Triple A studios all use their own engine which is 99% of the time written in C++ so being familiar in that is a must

  • Make your own games! Use Unity or Unreal cause it's so much faster to iterate on and prototype stuff. Building your own engine is great for learning, but don't make games from scratch cause it's a lot of pointless grunt work.

  • Get involved in the community! Seriously this is often overlooked but just working with people of similar interests can be great for experience and connections. Toronto has a huge indie game dev scene.
u/3131961357 · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Books. Game Engine Architecture, for example.

u/Dooskington · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Read books, read through repos on github, and most importantly: write your own!

I recommend Game Engine Architecture if you want a very broad but extremely useful reference guide.

u/echelonIV · 2 pointsr/gamedev

I ordered these for our company library, based on recommendations for/from other programmers (of all levels).

ISBN | Title
---|---
978-1568814247 | Real-time Rendering
0321486811 | Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (2nd Edition)
1482250926 or 0123742978 | Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications, Third Edition 3rd Edition
978-1482264616 | GPU Pro 6: Advanced Rendering Techniques
1466560010 | Game Engine Architecture, Second Edition
978-1482243567 | Multithreading for Visual Effects
978-0123750792 | Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation

u/Causeless · 2 pointsr/pcgaming

Consoles and PCs are more alike than ever, but it's still not close enough. For example, the unified memory architecture (with the onion and garlic buses) means that somebody programming on PC versus Xbone/PS4 means that they need to think differently.

> They are also on the same x86 Architecture as modern PC Gaming has been.

100% irrelevant and shows you don't really know what a programmer is doing when they are writing code. We don't use assembly language any more.

Source: I do programming and have read this (brilliant!) book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Engine-Architecture-Second-Edition/dp/1466560010

u/SunyiNyufi · 2 pointsr/GirlGamers

So as some of the others: I'm not from the gaming industry either (though I plan to make games on the side). And an other disclaimer: I'm over 30.

Let me just say most people in their 20s don't know what they would like to do, and even if they do, your interest will change over time, so just try to say flexible and don't fear making a switch if you are unhappy, of course within reason and financial security.

I recently switched from my regular office job to a less regular one in software development. My official background in software dev before was: none. I picked up coding like a year ago or so, because a C# course for game development was super cheap on Udemy (and by super cheap I mean like 10 or 15 USD), and continued learning coding ever since. Though I was a privileged candidate for my current job, because it was an internal hire, I basically got it by showing them what I can do. And we don't even code in C# in my new role lol

So my point is: learning doesn't have to be expensive, while some jobs require a specialized college degree a lot companies nowadays are more interested in whether or not you can do the job.

Also there are some Game Music courses on Udemy as well, though they might be too basic for you, still worth to check out imho :)

If you are interested in game design I would recommend this book too The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses https://www.amazon.de/dp/1466598646/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_nay4AbC7P2BFB

u/komoro · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Well for game design, I cannot overstate the impact that the book The Art of Game Design has. It lists where to start building a game, how to find mechanics, how to deal with chance and map building, what the players expect, how to engage the player, how to use audio correctly and many many more. Go check it out, if you are already familiar with programming, the more the better. But to be a great game designer takes much more - and a lot of it can be found in the book.

Happy creating :)

u/swordrush · 2 pointsr/TheSilphRoad

You're telling me (I design board games as one of my hobbies, read up on game design, talk about game design with other people designing games, etc). It seems very apparent to me you'd want to hire people specifically for game design aspects. But it's not always completely apparent to everybody. Also, Niantic starting out may not have had the funding available to dedicate somebody to focus on game design.

u/Eldakan · 2 pointsr/GameDevelopment

Technology: What technology are you using to create your game, mostly which engine... Where I read about these four aspects it was reffering to all kinds of games (Which would include card and board games as technology)


Story: The lore, history and narrative told in your game


Mechanics: What are you able to do in a game; e.g: Jump, Dash (for jump an runs) or block and hit (fighting game)


Aesthetics: What makes the game correspond to the players senses: music, visuals, light, shaders etc


Hope that helps (Source: https://www.amazon.de/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/1466598646 )

u/Wh0_The_Fuck_Cares · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

A lot of people have already talked about going to university for computer science, design, etc... but make sure you're also reading (The Art of Game Design), watching video series (Brackeys), and try participating in clubs or local meetup groups to get to know the industry and get your name out there.

u/PukeOfEarl · 2 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

I highly recommend Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. It's primarily focused on videogame design, but the topics are broad enough that most are applicable to boardgame design.

u/OvertechB · 2 pointsr/Unity2D

A lot of the balancing comes from play testing with actual players and a basic understanding of probability math.

Randomness in games can often be a fun addition because it leads to surprises and can make a boring game more interesting. But you also want to use with caution because you want your players to still feel like they are in control. Too much RNG can make people feel that the game is unfair.

Pre-built maps are good if you want people to be able to master them, and generated maps are good if you want people to think on their feet every time. Pre-built can make things predictable, whereas generated can add replayability.

As for symmetrical maps, do you mean both players start with an even playing field? If so, that's ideal for balance. If you do intend to give one player a map advantage, you'd have to properly balance the other player to have some other advantage. Imagine playing golf. The player at a disadvantage might be granted a handicap. The important thing is that both players must feel like they are treated fairly.

Edit: If you're really interested, I'd recommend The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell. There's 2 excellent chapters in there about game balance that details probability math, good design, and player psychology when dealing with balancing.

u/RaunchySlappy · 2 pointsr/boardgames

Thanks for the great question! I'll answer the way my mother always answer my long emails...

  • Background? My background is in actually more on the visual creative side rather than the game design side! I graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a degree in Illustration. My thesis project was to create and illustrate an entire game on my own ("Landfall" mentioned in a couple other places in this thread). Of course I ended up focusing on (and enjoying more) designing the gameplay and player experience aspects of the game.
  • Motivation? I really just want to design games and have people play them! If I'm lucky I'll break even on this project, haha. I've tried to keep everything as minimal and efficient as possible, to get the game to the people is my only real intent. It is incredibly satisfying when demoing the game to watch people truly enjoying something I've poured my blood, sweat, and tears into.
  • What resources did you seek/find? I am lucky enough to have a fantastic day job to afford to keep the lights on (and the 3D printer running), and have done lots, and lots, and lots, and loooots of research. The thing they don't tell you is that when you want to get your game published through KS, its like getting a third whole new job (in addition to my day job and my board game design job). It is so in depth you can practically major in crowdfunding. I read a ton of stuff from Jamey Stegmaier, have been reading this book andthis book, and have done lots and lots of trial and error.
  • Which resources were most helpful to you? Probably the 3D printer was one of my best investments as a tabletop game designer. It reaaaaally helps immerse the player (and myself) in the game I am creating if I can basically instantly create whatever components I want. (I purchased this affordable 3D printer and have had great success with it)
  • What approach worked for you personally, and how is it different from other boardgame designers? This is a really good question. Board game designing isn't typically something that becomes someone's full time job. Each person who has made the leap usually starts somewhere vastly different from game designing, and I believe that gives each designer a very unique perspective to their games and the way they go about creating them. For me, those things are mostly visually creative-related. At work I do illustration, graphic design, photography, videography, video editing etc etc. So making a decent looking prototype is something that I was able to do (mostly) on my own, and similarly making a nice game trailer and digital ads was relatively easy for me. While I had the visual components down, I differ from other designers who have different characteristics that they bring into play like business experience, industry contacts, an in depth understanding of Kickstarter (I am pretty familiar with KS, have backed a few things, but I am by no means a superbacker myself).
  • The biggest challenge you are proud to have overcome? Even though my campaign isn't at its goal just yet, I am proud at the amount of people I have been able to spark some interest and connection with through my game when starting basically from scratch. They say to have a successful campaign you need to have at least 10,000 emails when you launch, I had about 150 (I lucked out when my game trailer ended up blowing up on Reddit about a week before launch). It was very hot in that pigeon suit I wore for 4 days straight at PAX East promoting Crumbs, and it was exhausting taking a 5 day trip to NYC and demoing the game every day, but it was so worth it. This is my first game, and for someone starting with a near zero fanbase, I am proud my game has been able to touch this many people to begin with.
u/corpsmoderne · 2 pointsr/learnprogramming

It seems you're not lacking skills on the technical side, if you want to make games on you own, you may want to gain skills on the game-design side. This is the must-have : http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-Edition/dp/1466598646/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

And another must have : http://www.theoryoffun.com/

u/MinMacAttack · 2 pointsr/leveldesign

Buying him computer hardware might be nice, but there's a lot of other ways to give something related to games and game design.

There's always a great big pound of dice. It's full of dice of assorted numbers of sides, and a game designer remotely interested in tabletop (which should be all of them) can use a healthy supply of dice for making tabletop games. There's always the fun of just rolling dice giant handfuls of dice. I'm out right now but I'll add the link when I get back home. Here's the link: Pound of dice

I'd also look into games he hasn't tried. BoardGameGeek has a lot of board games listed and reviewed that you could get, and of course there's always steam. For board games I'd recommend:

  • Red Dragon Inn, a fun party game for 2-4 that's best with 3+. You play as a bunch of adventurers after big dungeon raid and now they're spending gold at their local tavern and gambling. Can support more players with its sequels.
  • Monopoly Deal: A card game version of Monopoly, without the bullshit. Unlike it's big board game cousin, it actually plays out fairly quickly while still being focused on building monopolies to win the game. As a game player perspective it's a fun game, but also from a game designer's perspective it's interesting to see how this game re-imagines the original board game while being true to the source material and streamlining many of its game mechanics.
  • Carcassonne: A well known classic game that works well with 2-5 players where players build up a world of castles, farmland, and roads.
  • Bang the Dice Game: A game where the sheriff and his deputies face off against the outlaws but nobody knows who to shoot. At the start of the game players are given their roles in the conflict but only the sheriff shows who they are. The rest of the game involves social deduction to try to figure who everyone is supposed to be shooting, and trying to read past bluffs. The game works great for 5-8 players, and can work for 3-8.

    There's also a lot of books on game design you can get him. You may have to check to see if he owns some of these already, but I've found them to be great reads that I can recommend to anyone interested in game design.

  • Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: This is a book that tells "The Triumphant, turbulent stories behind how video games are made" and talks about the stories behind 10 different games from across the video game industry and what went on during development. I just bought this one and haven't gotten to chance to read it yet, but I'm excited to start it soon.
  • The Art of Game Design: This is one of the most well known books on game design that discusses a lot of what makes games work. I recommend it to anyone interested in game design.
  • Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games: This book talks about everything that goes into how to design a game and some key differences on how some types of games work. It's more on the beginner/intermediate side, so some of it might be familiar to him.
u/Danwarr · 2 pointsr/BoardgameDesign

Ok, but why should somebody work with you if you've barely done any work on your own idea? Like /u/Bastiaan-Squared mentioned, most people are more excited to work on their own ideas, which they are constantly prototyping, refining, reworking etc, than to help you sit down and decide what mechanisms might work well in whatever setting you think is cool. You're better off spending your own time hammering out some potential mechanisms you might find interesting then approaching somebody and refining what you've done.


Here are a couple books that might help you out:

u/GeoKureli · 2 pointsr/gamedev

The Art of Game Design is a fantastic book focused on exposing all of the different ways to look at game design and all the different options and approaches you can explore. I highly recommend it.

As for me, I look at why a core mechanic works in an existing game break it down into the most abstract components. Like Punchout is about learning timing and sequence recognition. Reacting quickly to an enemy's "tell" makes me feel powerful, and not knowing the "tell" makes me want to explore and try things out and challenge my intuition. So apply it to something else, what else requires reflexes and discovering enemy patterns? I unno... Ping pong? Ping pong requires finess and I want a discreet Turing nature to the success of my volleys, can I simplify the controls? What about that game where I put my hand on top of yours and you have to slap my hand before I pull them away? Whack-a-mole requires reflex but the pattern is random, can I change that?

Just break down games into the smallest components and know that that is something that can be explored and try mixing things up

u/Kyubinin · 2 pointsr/gamedev

I just finished The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell and thought it was super insightful!

u/gludion · 2 pointsr/leveldesign

(EDIT: I just discovered "An Architectural Approach to Level Design" by Christopher W. Totten mentionned below and it looks great)

Hello, I don't know any book on "general" level principles (which exist, as any experimented LD can confirm).

Most books focus on specific genres (mostly 3D games) and tiny details about those genres (3d models, textures, sounds, etc.). I don't know any book encompassing various common genres (including 2d platformers, puzzle games) and dealing with common issues: how to introduce new objects, how to teach the player how to use them, how to balance difficulty progression, how to add multiples layer of goals and complexity, approaches to procedural LD...

The closest I've found is this blog: http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/gamedesign101/

There are many other interesting articles on gamasutra.

This book by Tanya Short is specifically about procedural content generation.

u/unormal · 2 pointsr/roguelikedev

Thanks! Glad they're helpful to some people, just trying to do stuff that would have been helpful to me starting off. As far as next talks:

Jason and I did chapters in this book, which came out recently: https://www.amazon.com/Procedural-Generation-Design-Tanya-Short/dp/1498799191

We also did a more academic style paper on the sultan history generation system:
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3110574

My next talk will probably be on map generation system in general, and maybe the sultan dungeon map generation subsystem in particular. I was thinking roguelike celebration, but it overlaps with my annunal vacation week this year. So maybe next year!

u/ArchonTom · 2 pointsr/gamedev

This was recently released: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1138595306/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 . Haven't looked at it yet myself, but it's the same author as https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1498799191/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1 which is quite good.

u/RafikiDev · 2 pointsr/Unity3D

Hey! Sorry for the late answer, I was drowning under school projects.

My personal favorite is Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping and Development. It gives a lot of on-point theory, it explains iterative design and good practices, and it's all clear and much more practical than your average game design book. The first part focuses on game design, the second part on programming (it's meant for beginners, so I just skimmed it) and the third one is a collection of 8 tutorials showing you how to make a prototype for 8 different kind of games. It's very clear and very complete. The only problem is that Unity is evolving so fast that the book might be obsolete too soon.

I have the first edition of that book that came out in 2014, and when I read it (in 2016), there was already several lines of codes that were outdated in the tutorials. (A second edition came out in 2017, I don't know how it is!). There's an official website that lists those lines and tell you what you should put instead, but it's a bit inconvenient. However, if your main interest is the game design part, you're good to go!

Another one that you might like is Challenges for Game Designers. I haven't gone through it yet, so I can't attest how good it is, but basically it's a book that switches between theory and practical exercises. I don't believe there's a book out there that provides that many exercises, so that's really good for sharpening your skills. It's also cool because you can design your games without having to implement them at all (they can even be though as board games!), so you save all the time of production and really just foster your design abilities, which seems to be your focus for the moment.

Finally, while not being a game design book per se, I highly recommend Derek Yu's Spelunky. It's a making-of written by the creator of the game himself, and it's full of great advice about game development in general. Also, as he explains the process of creating the game, if you pay attention to what he's saying, you can learn a lot about the craft without being given straight out theory.

I hope that fits your request! :) If you have any other question, hit me up! Also, I don't know why you asked about books specifically, but if you want any other recommendation in other format (videos, blogs, etc.), I will happily provide them.

u/PaddyBrophy · 2 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

Why not set yourself some challenges and see if you can stick to them? Constraining components can be a great way to spur creativity. For example, create some aspect of your everyday life as a game, but you can only include 20 cards. Next challenge restrict yourself to 10 cards. Then no cards.

Alternatively, maybe try this book? I have it on my bookshelf but have never opened it... https://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X

u/Bargeinthelane · 2 pointsr/gamedev

https://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X

Can't recommend this book highly enough, but to be honest you need to be in a group of people to get the most out of it. I basically built my introductory game design class on it. Great introduction and practice for game design.

u/incognatias · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Sounds like the challenge that you are having is getting hung up on the technological aspect, which I would bet is incredibly common among aspiring designers. Game design transcends medium. Technology simply enables game play from design. To provide a chance-driven strategic experience, any number of tools can be used: dice, cards, computer, or even just a drop of water and an angled surface. For simulating fast paced combat, a computer provides a number of advantages, but many prefer to use inflatable barriers and paintball markers instead.

Check out Challenges for Designers. It is a practical guide to game design strategies for video game designers, but utilizing non-digital means. It forces you to consider what actually makes a game fun, interesting, or challenging, without getting caught up in rendering engines, input methods, or the myriad other technical considerations that you, as a designer, won't actually have direct control over on a reasonably large game team anyway.

Once you have cohesive ideas about exactly what you want to see in a gaming experience, I think that you'll find learning the how to be a hell of a lot easier. Then you won't just be sitting at the keyboard trying to "design a level," you will be creating the specific player experience that you envision, which will define what tools to use and provide guidance on what questions to ask the pertinent communities for those tools.

When all else fails, build a Tetris clone. :) And no, that's not a joke.

u/PaganBacon · 2 pointsr/boardgames

You should check out the book Challenges for Game Designers: non-digital exercises for video game designers. I know it says it's for video game designers, but! note that it is non-digital exercises: The vast majority of the exercises are actually board game exercises. Plus, they stress that video game design and board game design has a lot in common. Really, there is plenty in the book for both. As the title suggests it focuses on giving the reader practical experience, each chapter has a short introduction to some game design term or concept, and then a bunch of exercises in the end, which are usually an exercise in creating a game prototype in a certain genre, using a certain mechanic, or whatnot. Here's a link to the amazon.com product page in case you want to look a bit in the book, or order it.

A few of the places in the book really target video game design, from a quick re-skimming of the books chapters: talking about multiplatform, talking about designing UI (Though, I think you could take this as a lesson in designing "UI" on game boards: trackers on the board, and personal player boards), and talking about social networks.

u/megazver · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Buy Challenges for Game Designers or Game Design Workshop, Second Edition. Or both. Do the stuff in them. Basically, both of these books teach you to actually design games, instead of programming, by designing in pen&paper first. It's a good approach.

A few other books there are also a good read for you guys.

u/ZeitlosEisen · 2 pointsr/gaming

This is coming from a student in the game design program at DigiPen, a game development college where the teams behind Portal and Portal 2 both graduated.

Start by introducing yourself to game history. Learn about the different types of game families: racetrack games, war games, positional games, mancala games, dice games, card games. There are thousands of different non-digital games and you should start getting to know them.

I recommend Board and Table Games by R.C. Bell as a handy guide. http://www.amazon.com/Board-Table-Games-Many-Civilizations/dp/0486238555

Learn the mechanics of paper games. A board game is essentially a level in a digital game. Card games are about information. Learn about the probability curves used in dice games. And above all, design games. When you design games, ask yourself WTF: What's this for? If it's useless or adds nothing, scrap it. Never be afraid to kill a rule or even an entire idea if it's not working right. In the industry, they refer to this as being able to kill your baby.

Some great books on design:

Challenges for Game Designers

An excellent read and it has a ton of great exercises for non-digital design.
http://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300163628&sr=1-1

Game Design Workshop

Another great read.
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Workshop-Second-Playcentric/dp/0240809742/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300163687&sr=1-1

If you're young enough to be in public school, why not try out DigiPen's K-12 Game Design summer program?
https://projectfun.digipen.edu/workshops/courses/game-design/

RPG Maker is a good start, but don't get stuck with it. Try out GameMaker, Unreal Engine, Unity3D, Flash and ActionScript 3.0. You'll need to be able to code or at least script if you want any chance in the industry.

WATCH THIS VIDEO! http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2443-So-You-Want-to-be-a-Game-Designer It is paramount to what it means to be a designer.

u/Zuggy · 2 pointsr/boardgames

TL;DR: Prototype and test your game idea, don't worry about art all for a long time, do not get into game design because you think you'll be able to make a career out of it

I've picked up game design over the last six months and have really been enjoying it, and while I'm not looking for a partner I can give you some pointers to start. I'll try to deconstruct some of what you're saying because I think you're making some incorrect assumptions about game design and how to do it. I think some of this is going to sound cold or mean, but I don't intend it to be. I just want you to go in with realistic expectations, and if you can accept that I'm finding game design to be a lot of fun.

First, think about is why you want to make games. You seem to be trying to use a project as a jumping off point to design games professionally. Honestly, at least as far as board games go, there really isn't much money in designing games for most people. Sure there are a few people who design board games professionally but for most, if you make any money at it, it'll be like a second job. If designing board games is something you want to do, it should be something you do for the joy of designing board games in and of itself, not because it sounds like a cool profession.

Personally, I think everyone who is passionate about board games should try designing their own games, but they need to go into it knowing that they're designing board games because they enjoy the creative process, not because they'll make a living at it. I love the perpetual puzzle of game design and having something in my head manifest itself in the form of paper, cardboard, dice and bits.

Second, how to actually start designing games. You talk about wanting to make a "finished" game. I think what you mean is you want to see a game design taken from beginning to end. Designing any type of game is what's called an iterative design process. If you don't know that means you take your game idea, you make a prototype of it, test it out, realize it's awful but maybe find some gems that are fun, refine it, make a new prototype, rinse and repeat. These first prototypes should be rough. For example, I'm working on a dungeon-crawler card game and my "cards" are just pieces of paper cut up with my text on them and then put in card sleeves with poker cards as a backing. Art is something that should come towards the end of the process because you'll be making so many changes this early in the design process that getting someone to do art would be a waste of time (and probably money).

Eventually, when you think your game is at a stage where it's kind of fun is when you start playtesting with other people. Get people together, have them try your game design and see what they think. If they're friends, tell them to be honest. Realize that they'll point out things you didn't think of and they'll hate bits of your game that you love and it'll feel like getting gut checked. Like I said I'm fairly new to game design, but from what I've heard from professional game designers and from my local game design group, that feeling never goes away. When your baby starts getting torn apart it's one of the worst feelings in the world, but it has to be done to make something better.

The reason you go through all of this is no matter how good you think your game idea is, it definitely won't be good when it first goes from your mind to the paper. It probably still won't be particularly good after you've improved it several times, but hopefully you'll see something good and be able to combine those good bits to make something really enjoyable. If you see no hope in it maybe to shelve it for later and try something else.

Third, you brought up working with an artist to talk about the look of your game and coming up with lore and such. This is something you really shouldn't even worry about until you have a game prototype that's starting to near the final stages. When you're at the point you feel the game is ready for what's called blind playtesting, which is when you feel your game is ready to be tested by complete strangers.

Below I've linked a few videos and a podcast I hope you'll find useful.

One Thousand XP's Board Game Design Time Playlist - It's a small video series discussing different aspects of board game design

The Dice Tower's Top 10 Tips for Game Designers - Some great tips on designing board games that covers some of what I posted here and more

The Game Design Roundtable Podcast - They interview people about how they designed their games and have regular audience Q&A episodes. I think it's enjoyable for anyone who enjoys games (they focus mainly on board games but also do some video game stuff) and essential for anyone just getting started in game design

I've also started going through the book "Challenges for Game Designers" which has chapters talking about different aspects of both board and video game design and at the end of each chapter are challenges for making board games based on the material covered in that chapter.

Finally, I want to reiterate something I said previously. Don't get into board game design thinking you're going to make a career out of it. Maybe someday you'll become the next Alan Moon, Friedemann Friese, Donald X. or Reiner Knizia, but even if you do it'll be a long road before you get there.

When people bring up wanting to get into game design because they're passionate about games and want to make a living doing it I relate the attitude of my dad. As much as I love him, every hobby he's ever been interested in goes in these steps. First, he says, "This looks really cool I'd love to do that." Second, he says, "If I get good enough I could make money at this." Then he tries whatever it is he's interested, realizes he's not good enough out the gate to sell it and gives up. He's 60 years old and has been having a hard time the last couple of years because the closest thing he has to a rewarding hobby is playing Hearts and Spades on his laptop. The problem is he never sticks with a hobby long enough to actually get good and enjoy it because his aim was to try and do something he could sell.

If you get nothing else out of this post I hope this is what sticks with. Make games because you love making games, don't make games to make money. One day your dream might come true and you might be able to design games for a living, but that shouldn't be your primary goal.

u/ya3ya6 · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

Cool.
actually i tried about 5 engines , and construct 2 is easiest and fastest one.
and there is some tutorials on card game also:
https://www.google.com/search?q=construct2+card+game&rlz=1C1GCEA_enIR764IR764&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHm_yz3_XZAhVn74MKHaCqDHIQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=637

actually it's better to design and prototype card games in paper and cards, even if it's too fancy, you can make a simplified version with cards.

i read some chapteres of this book and it was amazing, read it if you had time.

https://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X

good luck :D

u/ZeuglinRush · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Challenges for game designers is excellent. The real meat of the book is the set of excercises and projects, with a lot of excellent information and discussion to back it up.

Not directly related to game design, but these days nobody has an excuse not to have read the art of war. There are many free versions of it out there, including an audiobook. Check its wiki page!

u/mauszozo · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Sounds like a fun idea! Some friends and I have been getting together and designing and playing our own games lately for our weekly gaming nights. I'll try and recruit them as well. :)

There's this great book called "Challenges for Game Designers" that might be fun, if you're looking for more inspiration. (though what you've got already is fantastic.) Each chapter in the book discusses a different game design problem, (pacing, puzzles, randomness, etc.) and there are challenges at the end of each section where you create a tabletop game, or at least a design document, detailing how you would make a game that addresses the problem. Anyway, love that book and wanted to mention it, ;-P

Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

u/enalios · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

If you want to be a game designer, just first accept that you're training for a marathon not a sprint.

Start with small exercises, not a full game just, like, quick sketches of game mechanics or ideas.

Do lots of tutorials, like "how to make a shmup in [whatever game engine]" and then when you finish the tutorial just add one or two things to make it your own, then move on to another tutorial.

After a few of those, start participating in 48 hour game jams.

There's a site I participated in for a bit called 1 Game a Month in which the idea was simply to finish one game a month. Not a masterpiece every month, just something finished every month.

It really is worth it to invest time in learning how to actually finish a project as opposed to always thinking about finishing it.

I recommend reading the following short articles:

The Chemistry of Game Design

Understanding Challenge

And I recommend the following books, not necessarily to read cover to cover but to read until the content doesn't seem to interest you, then just kinda skip around to the interesting bits:

Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Braithwaite

The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell

And finally I recommend reading this book from cover to cover:

A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster

u/minond · 2 pointsr/webdev

Not really related to mobile development, but he should still really enjoy these if he hasn't read them already:

u/ViennettaLurker · 2 pointsr/onthegrid

Some attempt at a happy ending that ties into a theme.

Not sure if you guys have ever come across "Anna Anthropy". But she is a transgender video game developer who wrote a really interesting book on her life and career:

http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Videogame-Zinesters-Drop-outs-Housewives/dp/1609803728

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Anthropy

"Rise of the Videogame Zinesters" is a fun, inspiring read. Not only does it feel good to see a feminist viewpoint in the game development community, but what she has to say about design, career, and artistic choices is really good as well. What she has to say is useful to anyone in a creative field, in my opinion.

u/Campstar · 2 pointsr/Games

This is definitely the course we're on, and it definitely sucks.

Still, we can either look at it as an inevitability or try to fight against it. And there are still champions out there fighting for a more democratized culture of games creation. I see no reason to resign ourselves to that fate yet - though it's almost certainly far too late for the current blockbuster AAA environment.

u/mnemosyne-0002 · 2 pointsr/KotakuInAction
u/moonshinesalute · 2 pointsr/GirlGamers

It's not a problem. We all use the wrong word sometimes. GamerGate I guess made me paranoid a little.

You might want to check out State of Play for some ideas:

http://www.amazon.com/The-State-Play-Creators-Critics/dp/1609806395

Leigh Alexander I think is leaving gaming though and Anita Sarkeesian is changing her project when tropes vs women dies down. She's almost done.

u/BloodyThorn · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

This one for basic C# and OOP.

Beginning Visual C# 2010

O'Reilly has great reference books.

C# 4.0 in a Nutshell: The Definitive Reference

From there you can learn Mono for Android (and iOS)

Professional Android Programming with Mono for Android and .NET/C#

While learning XNA game development by example,

XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example: Beginner's Guide

And by detail...

Learning XNA 4.0: Game Development for the PC, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7

u/The_Sober_Grudge · 1 pointr/gamedev

Hey Big_cow, congrats on your new job - I envy you and hope to join you shortly, as I am currently on a similar path (26, currently not in the industry but working my way in - started about 3-4 months ago).

I have a question/request for advice: I'm a non-gaming software engineer (around 3 years experience, currently doing DevOps at a healthcare-IT startup; no college degree). My current trajectory/plan is to write a few (3-4) games of varying levels of completion (some just for learning, maybe one as the "crown jewel" of my portfolio) with Unity and Unreal, and a game engine (not on par with Unity or Unreal, but one that fundamentally handles the basic functionality like rendering, physics, and AI to the extent that I could write a simple platformer or shooter game to prove it works - I'm currently working my way through this book), then try my luck in the industry.

Do you think that me already having experience programming will make a big difference? I see other game programmers like John Carmack, the Eidos folks who wrote Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, or the GTA V team and feel absolutely intimidated. Do you think I'm in for a serious struggle in terms of finding a job?

u/raze2012 · 1 pointr/gamedev

Based on the roadmap link posted elsewhere in the thread:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-837-computer-graphics-fall-2012/

https://www.edx.org/course/computer-graphics-uc-san-diegox-cse167x-2

From personal knowledge, I'd also check out Udacity's course:

https://www.udacity.com/course/interactive-3d-graphics--cs291

and maybe Coursera's (personally did not care for it, but might as well list it):

https://www.coursera.org/learn/interactive-computer-graphics

As for architecture, I haven't really seen any great lectures on doing this. I'd recommend checking out the book of the same name to get a high level overview of the features larger engines consider, and perhaps check out the source of some larger engines to get the best idea.

u/erikbc · 1 pointr/gamedev

3D Math Primer

Game Engine Architecture

I'd like to recommend these two.

u/lazyAgnostic · 1 pointr/santashelpers

For programming, what kind of programming is he into? Here are some cool programming books and things:

  • Automate the Boring Stuff with Python This book has a lot of beginner projects that are actually useful.

  • Arduino A little microprocessor that he can use to make cool projects. I'm a software engineer and I had fun playing aroung with this. Plus, you can use it for actual useful things (I'm planning on making an automatic plant waterer, but you can look online for all the awesome stuff people have made).

  • Raspberry Pi Similar to the arduino but it's a full computer. For more software-heavy projects than the arduino. I'd probably recommend starting with the arduino.

  • Great book about how code and computers actually work that's geared towards the "intelligent layperson" link.

  • If he's already programming and wants to create games I can recommend this one.. Not good for beginners though.

  • If you want to give him a well written tome about game programming here it is. Again, not really for beginners but really good for someone wanting to learn about game programming
u/gavinb · 1 pointr/opengl

Well if you want to be the next Carmack, get cracking! :) You have a lot of ground to cover, such as: mathematics (matrices, linear algebra, etc), physics, artificial intelligence, real-time processing, multithreading, architecture, networking and protocols, rendering, sound, and much more!

It is certainly possible with enough time and dedication to develop your own engine. It's just that there are so many excellent engines already out there, that you would be competing with projects that have already invested many thousands of hours and have loads of titles already developed for them. Why not get involved with an existing project to start?

BTW I really like your idea of creating a FPS with one room and focusing on making that environment the richest possible, exploiting a wide variety of techniques. Do it!!

Is your ultimate goal to create an engine? Or to create a game? Remember, the engine is in many ways a means to an end - it's not much use without a game that uses it!

Either way, I think you would be well advised to get involved with one of the open source game engine projects, and start contributing. Once you've learned how they work, you will be in a much better position to design your own. And realistically, you can't really just design an engine without a game - you need to know how games work in the first place, and what features and architectural decisions and designs make for a good engine.

Consider joining:

u/rgehan · 1 pointr/gamedev

I'll take a look at them. Thank you :)

EDIT: Are you referring to this one and you probably mean Game Coding Complete ?

u/Shadow-Master · 1 pointr/gamedev

Don't be suckered by a "Game Design" program. There are VERY few good ones. Most of them....as in, 99% of them...are rip-offs.

Learn programming, 3D-modeling, or animation. Pick one that you're more interested in and then full-speed ahead. These will make you useful in more than just game development roles, thus helping you in the future when you have trouble landing a game dev job. At least you'll still be doing something you like in the meantime, and still building your skill in that area. Many really popular game designers have specialties outside of just "Design". Some are excellent programmers, some are artists, some have excellent business skills (really good at project management), and some are brilliant story-writers. Most game design positions are not entry-level, because you REALLY have to know what you are doing, before someone will trust you enough to let you touch the design. The only real way to prove that you are actually a good game designer is by having games to show off. That proves that you have some idea of the design process and know how to maintain a game from start to finish. This is HARD.

Some like to say that these degree programs for game design help them by giving them the incentive to push through and finish their stuff, otherwise, they might not have the motivation. Well, that's very problematic, because that means that you will not be the type of person who can finish a game. Game development requires you to be highly self-driven.

Most of what "Game Design" programs teach you can be learned by picking up a few game design books and making your own games (alot of them, too). Game design is learned by making games, not by having a professor tell you about it. You have enough mentors in the game development community already. They will always be there to critique what you do and give you tips on how to improve your work. Pick up a couple of books like The Art of Game Design and Designing Games. You can look at other books in whatever other area you want to master and just get started on making games. Turn off your console and just get started. Start small. Make very simple, basic games to start off with (B.A.S.I.C.). It's about learning the process first. Do that while reading a ton of highly-detailed game postmortems online. Just learn the process. THAT will be your real education.

And finally, start working your way up to putting together a portfolio. Portfolios speak much louder than a resume (although, a resume is still important). And that doesn't mean having a bunch of "Game Design docs". Games. Not docs. Games. Then build up your confidence and hook up with a team, so you can fight your way together to the end of making a complete game. (this may be one of the only valuable things that a game design program can provide you out of the box, i.e., a team that you are forced to work on a game with)

The single most important tool you will ever have is discipline. No degree will be able to top that. Give up the idea of being a hardcore gamer, because you are now going to need to become a VERY disciplined person. You're going to need it.

Finally: Don't forget to have fun. Good luck! :)

u/bobbateswriter · 1 pointr/IAmA

The single most important skill a game designer needs is what I call "Player Empathy." You must be able to figure out what the player is thinking, what he/she wants to do next, and how to entertain them while they are playing the game. Beyond that, there are so many different types of games - and therefore game design - that it's pointless to try and summarize in a forum like this. I did write a book about game design, which you can probably get from your local library. The Amazon link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Bob-Bates/dp/1592004938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487025482&sr=8-1&keywords=bates+game+design

It's been out long enough that it's a bit dated on the production side, although the game design fundamentals still hold true.

But the best book to get, and it's much more current is Jesse Schell's book, which you can find here...

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Lenses-Second/dp/1466598646/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487032271&sr=8-1&keywords=Jesse+Schell+game+design

If you're building your very first game, I would advise not waiting for it "to be done" before you show it to people. As soon as you have made any portion of it, get it in front of people to see their reactions. Look up the name Sid Meier and see what he has written about how he develops his games a little piece at a time. Iterative development is where it's at!

u/Xand0r · 1 pointr/IndieDev

Glad my feedback was useful.

Thinking in terms of simplicity doesn't necessarily make for a better game. Fun should probably be more of a focus.

I definitely wouldn't say that I had "fun" or was hooked by your prototype. Creating fun in game design can often mean designing a good game loop. You game loop right now is 5 seconds long, consisting of "press a button for 4 seconds". Not very interesting or rewarding as it stands.

Here's a book I highly recommend:
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Lenses-Second/dp/1466598646/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1537819025&sr=8-3&keywords=game+design

It's all about game design, independent of coding or anything else.

u/destructor_rph · 1 pointr/gamedev

Which Book is better?

This One or This One?

u/MikeontheJob · 1 pointr/hearthstone

If you want to learn how a company makes a compelling game then read The Art of Game Design

u/RollingCarey · 1 pointr/vancouver

Thank you for the advice. I have learned a bit on my own (shameless portfolio plug here ) The dilemma I am having is the part of Game Development I enjoy most is Game Design the systems mechanics and rules part I have been reading some theory on my own Theory of Fun & The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses would recommend both. Anyway I find I learn very well in a class room environment seeing peers work on cool stuff gets me all fired up. Ok life story aside whats applicable as far as "normal degree/certificate" for Game Design?

u/Cassiopeiathegamer · 1 pointr/roguelikedev

There is also a great chapter on his methods in the book Procedural Game Design.

https://www.amazon.com/Procedural-Generation-Design-Tanya-Short/dp/1498799191/ref=nodl_

u/BenSS · 1 pointr/gamedesign

Work through the exercises in "Challenges for Game Designers" https://www.amazon.com/dp/1542453313/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_atKDybA1PP1PT - Both of the books you referenced have a lot of theory and exploration, but CfGD has plenty of actionable exercises. There is a ton of value in prototyping and exploring the space non-digitally, even if you're more focused on making digital games.

u/Rolalas90 · 1 pointr/boardgames

For my class we have challenges for game designers
It's a decent enough book but not the best it is great though because of the exercises is gives for different game types

u/ashlykos · 1 pointr/tabletopgamedesign

Challenges for Game Designers is full of non-digital game design exercises. One of the authors, Ian Schreiber, put together an accompanying free online class/blog.

u/andersgamedev · 1 pointr/gamedesign

Brenda Braithwaite (Romero) wrote an entire book on this.

Challenges for Game Designers https://www.amazon.com/dp/158450580X/

u/EARink0 · 1 pointr/tabletopgamedesign

Following a problem from a book of game design challenges (this one for those curious), I'm starting a WWII era RPG based on the Brothers in Arms video game series. Game play has a focus on combat (is that bad for an RPG?) so I'm currently working out the details.

The intention is for it to be used in a classroom setting with high school students, which means rules need to be simple and easy to learn. This has proved to be quite the challenge to maintain interesting combat mechanics inspired by the core mechanics of the series, while keeping rolls to a D6 and math to a minimum. Feel pretty excited about it though!

u/StompingBrokenGlass · 1 pointr/AskReddit

i Have started programing with basic to program games on the MSX using a book, that what have sparked things for me.

Skipping to these days, my bro have showed interest into programing, so I've tried to tech him a couple languages by giving him books, but it seams he was not comfortable with the complex way of them.

So, I thought of days I had the MSX and programing games from a book, finding something similar was the key.

I've found Land of Lisp, I gave it to him and hes happy with it.

I guess you can try Lisp with Land of Lisp, and see how it goes before going for C++, Java or other languages.

u/minimuminim · 1 pointr/SRSGaming

I don't know - I feel like I'm expressing myself badly here.

None of what you are suggesting are bad things. They're all sort of... no-brainers, but I just keep watching these scandals pop up and then fade out, over and over again... it breeds cynicism, I suppose, but I can't help but feel that we must be missing something, or that there's some other way of working at this.

I think part of it is this:

> And improving that relationship by fixing the content coming from the content creator is something I feel is extremely important.

because I just have no faith left in the games industry, much like I have little faith in the movie industry to improve itself, much like I have little faith in the music industry to improve itself. When you strap creativity onto a structure revolving around profit, I honestly don't think that is an avenue we want to be shoring up. The relationship of power between a consumer and a producer in our capitalist system is not equal. I would love to say that things like Bioware finally writing in a gay male NPC is progress, but the very fact that this bafflingly lukewarm tokenism is held up as an example of progressive games-writing is problematic in and of itself.

As to your points about the unique nature of the videogaming community, I believe that it's not specific to the medium, or at least not caused by the medium. It's very, very easy to trace the isolated, gender-segregated history of the tech and games industry, and how that reflects on a) what kinds of games are made and b) who those games are sold to, which leads to c) who gets inspired to make what kinds of games.

Have you read Anna Anthropy's Rise of the Videogame Zinesters? She calls for creation outside of capitalist systems of games-making. It reads more like a manifesto, which I think is a good thing, and ends in with a Twine tutorial. I think you would enjoy it.

eta: In hindsight I think this is a better way of articulating my point.

> we all contribute to the gaming industry by purchasing certain games we choose/enjoy

implies that all games arrive through the capitalist system, and I think that that's not true and also not the best way of doing things. And I would encourage alternatives as a way of trying to encourage or create less toxic communities revolving around games.

u/CaliforniaDTS · 1 pointr/transgender

The creator of this also just published a book that came out like last week.

http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Videogame-Zinesters-Drop-outs-Housewives/dp/1609803728

u/pixis-4950 · 1 pointr/doublespeaksterile

xiaorobear wrote:

The creator of Dys4ia (and Mighty Jill Off, and other games, Anna Anthropy) actually wrote a book related to this subject, called Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form. Which I haven't read, but I'm sure will interest you.

u/vedvikra · 1 pointr/Acoustics

The approach is usually broken into two categories: transmission loss and reverberation.

Transmission Loss is a measure of how much sound (noise) is reduced through partitions (i.e. walls, doors, windows). Increasing the transmission loss of a partition is what most will consider as "blocking" sound.

Reverberation is a measure of the effect of reflections that occur when sound waves interact with walls, doors, windows, ceilings, walls. We can affect reverberation by adding sound absorption panels to a space. Reduction reverberation is what most will consider as "absorbing" sound.

You will need to study up on these concepts to understand why possible options/approaches will or will not be effective and what impact each option will have. https://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Everest/dp/0071841040

Most noise occurs during movement between classes, so we're less concerned about that hindering studying.

Step 1: characterize all noise sources that occur during class activity (from inside the building and outside).

Step 2: characterize the pathway for each of those noise sources.

Step 3: identify possible solutions to mitigate each source-pathway combination with predictions on effect after treatment.

u/n00dlesAU · 1 pointr/PUBATTLEGROUNDS

If you have 2 players outside the bound you mean? There are a number of different strategies for that. None of which you'll find in reddit or on youtube. If you're interested, this book is a half decent starting point https://www.amazon.com/Multiplayer-Game-Programming-Architecting-Networked/dp/0134034309

u/_awful_waffle_ · 1 pointr/gamedev

I read through Multiplayer Game Programming, which covers a pretty generic approach to 'locked timestep' netcode. From that, I was able to build out a basic server/client framework to really grasp the concepts. I enjoyed the book and the approach of writing the system from scratch (figuring out RTT's, how far ahead the server should run, etc). FWIW, I built out my client/server experiment simply using Node and socket.io - you could probably do something similar.

I'd also suggest checking out the recent Overwatch Netcode/ECS GDD talk (around 22:30), which covers the same basic premise as the above mentioned book uses.

u/WhiteZero · 1 pointr/Games

Racing the Beam is suppose to be a good book on old console development and how they tuned graphics to the way CRTs worked.

u/hahanoob · 1 pointr/gamedev

Racing The Beam is about the Atari 2600 (though it does mention the NES in passing). And you did say "any early-model game consoles". I hope they do one on the NES sometime, it was great for getting some perspective on modern hardware.

u/Knochenhans · 1 pointr/zxspectrum

I guess you mean that one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X Seems to be about the Atari VCS but sounds interesting neverless, thanks! :)

u/librik · 1 pointr/programming

Racing the Beam was my recommendation for best computer book of 2009. It's about how the hardware choices of the Atari 2600 shaped the mindset and culture of Atari programmers. It's the only book I know of that really explains how people hack small systems, how brilliant insights become clever code which then becomes essential knowledge for those who seek further mastery of the machine's potential.

For a great analysis of the architecture of one of the most important pieces of Big Iron ever built, check out Jim Thornton's book Design of a Computer: The Control Data 6600 (PDF). It's perfectly readable without electronics training (just skip chapter 3), and you can watch Seymour Cray invent the cutting-edge CPU technology of 1980-2000 -- in 1963.

u/HiroP713 · 1 pointr/truegaming

Racing the Beam covers a lot of these sorts of technical limitations for the Atari 2600.

http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X

u/pjsdev · 1 pointr/gamedesign

Okay, here are 4 suggestions about theory. There are plenty more, but these are a few of my favourites.

Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals

  • Chunky theory book and one of my favourites. Also has a companion book of essays

    Characteristics of Games

  • Really nice combination of chapters from various designers (including Richard Garfield of MtG) looking into different aspects of design.

    Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design

  • All about systems and how resources move through them in games and the affect that has.

    Theory of Fun for Game Design

  • Easy to read, nicely illustrated and conveys a powerful fundamental idea for game design.

    Good luck and happy reading.
u/brentknowles · 1 pointr/gamedesign

For an examination of game design at its core, I'd recommend The Rules of Play

http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play-Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp/0262240459/

I would offer caution about going "too big" on your first outing. Pick your tool to build your first game (or even just mod an existing game) and try to create something small.

And if you just want to prototype rapidly, I was using Scratch for a while before I got up to speed on Unity (http://scratch.mit.edu/) even though I hate visual scripting languages...

u/Dark512 · 1 pointr/gamedev

Not entirely sure if this is what you're after, but this is something that my games art tutors recommend.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rules-Play-Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp/0262240459

u/TheDieIsPodcast · 1 pointr/boardgames

Take a look at this book: https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play-Design-Fundamentals-Press/dp/0262240459

It will provide some pretty good insight, I think.

u/Code_wizard · 1 pointr/rpg

Game design hobbyist here, I think some perspective is needed. If you want to start designing games I suggest you begin with something smaller. Table top RPGs are a complex interconnected web of rules and stats and one of the hardest types of games to design well. The only other type of physical game that is equal in difficulty is a deck building card game (which is what I assume you meant as 'card game'). If this is a hobby you wish to pursue I suggest reading a few books on game theory, flow, and statistics. This textbook can serve as a good introduction to all of these: Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. After that, write a master design document that explains everything you want to accomplish with the game. Next, get some index cards and start play-testing ideas. . . .

u/Mercy404 · 1 pointr/hobbygamedev

That's exactly it, I want to experiment with different ideas for the meta game, all of them very different from the source material, and pretty diverse among themselves as well.

I think you might be on to something about a mechanic similar to the Linear RPG; it would certainly be simple to prototype and test out.

One of the goals I had in mind was to focus less on fast, frantic action and more on slower, strategic play. Whether the strategy is in setting up big chains, or choosing when to use certain tiles or which to match when, I'm not yet sure.

I actually just discovered Machinations when I read your other post, and have been playing with it a bit to experiment with some potential systems for the meta game. It seems unfortunately poorly documented, I'm assuming there would be a lot of content about it in their expensive book though.

u/partybusiness · 1 pointr/gamedev

https://www.amazon.ca/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design/dp/0321820274

This has an approach to mechanics that views everything as a resource, which I think makes it well-suited for idle games. On the down side, it talks a lot about using their software which was made in Flash, and their replacement is now in closed beta. (And apparently runs server-side so in the future they will charge per-simulation? I'm kind of annoyed they don't just sell it as a standalone product.)

u/zzzzz_ · 1 pointr/footballmanagergames

I've always been interested in economic theory... some of my thoughts in the game design document were around having two types of economy: a global economy and a local one. I wanted this to have an effect on the player in terms of the strength of the league (i.e. how much money was coming out of TV rights, attendances, demand for the product etc). A weaker league gives team less chance of buying top quality players resulting in lesser ability to compete globally without huge investment from the player etc.

I'm not sure how to tie this into the game without making it too complicated but I did buy a book on game mechanics (http://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274) so I've been studying the mechanics behind some popular MMO / tycoon type games.

There's a really cool tool by the authors of the book I just linked:
http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/

I've used that in the GDD to simulate a few of the sources / drains / converters in the game... balancing the game and making it enjoyable is going to be a real challenge. I'm concentrating on getting the basics of match simulation and a stable server for hundreds of connections before I start with the actual game mechanics itself but something I'm really looking forward to!

u/manjistyle · 1 pointr/Unity3D

I feel the same way at times. I recently found a decent book that points me in the right direction. Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C# https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321933168/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_VhXx42O3fAPhR

u/yoAlbireo · 1 pointr/gamedev

All I learned about game design started with this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Game-Design-Prototyping-Development/dp/0321933168

Read this cover to cover and you can pretty much make any basic game. The next step is, of course, making more complex games and learning as you go.

u/TheMartyr5 · 1 pointr/gamedesign

Definitely will do, geometry wars 3 should be on the Xbox store soon I think, and I currently have this book just haven't read it yet http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0321933168/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1416064145&sr=8-1. Although I'm against using unity because I like coding the entire low level engine up to high level stuff I will give it a try and Also get the books you recommend.

u/piotrmarkovicz · 1 pointr/gaming

If you want to be a good writer, you have to read.

If you want to be a good game designer, you have to play.

But if you are gonna play... then learn to make them too:

Good book on Game Design: Level Up by Scott Rogers

Design your own games easy: GameMaker and I suggest the book The Game Maker's Apprentice or Stencyl or even App Inventor for Android

u/jamesman135 · 1 pointr/gamedev

I'm currently working on my first game, and got this book and I cannot recommend it enough. It has a full template and example of a GDD and walks you through how to do it, and what you need to consider. Don't worry you don't need to buy it, I just flicked through the preview copy amazon puts online and it's available, obviously a few pages are missing here and there, but it gives you a good idea, it starts at page 68. Give it a quick read, I hope it helps!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X

u/BongosOnFire · 1 pointr/SRSGaming

It came back to my mind after browsing through 1001 Videogames You Must Play Before You Die, or rather this interactive list. I don't have a warm spot for JRPGs as a genre since they seem so very grindy and prone to excessive length and my standards for video game narratives have only gone up, but probably I have space for one good JPRG still.

u/Aresei · 1 pointr/retrogaming

At one point in time I wanted to play all the games in this book: https://www.amazon.com/1001-Video-Games-Must-Before/dp/0789320908

u/spindizm · 1 pointr/gamedev

Rather than just listing my favourites, I would like to point you to 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.

After a long time of video game abstinence it helped me to get back on track. If I now start a project I use it to research similar games of the genre. Although not quite up to date anymore (~2010) it is a great place to get started ...

u/JasonLiao · 1 pointr/learnjavascript

We all know Professional JavaScript for Web Developers is a fantastic book for the JavaScript beginner. And the author also has a book about ES6 called Understanding ECMAScript 6, hope this help :)

u/codaboom · 1 pointr/javascript

This was an excellent book. Very thorough and got me learning my first few months of JS https://www.amazon.com/Professional-JavaScript-Developers-Nicholas-Zakas/dp/1118026691

u/udiWertheimer · 1 pointr/dogecoders

The book isn't mine :)

You can purchase it here or try out the pdf. I recommend you buy it if you like it.

More info at the introduction post.

u/DotaRageDotComm · 1 pointr/webdev

strap down with a good book, and work through the examples in said book.
For example, a decent one for Javascript would be Professional Javascript for Web Developers. While you get a firm grasp on concepts try building something.

u/jaymz58 · 1 pointr/web_dev

I'm not sure what your level of understanding is for programming in general; but If you're fairly new to programming concepts (creating variables, if then else, loops, functions, classes, etc) I would probably spend some time getting familiar with these concepts first. I think there might be some decent beginner programming/JavaScript vids on Lynda.com to watch. One thing to keep in mind is JavaScript isn't a very rigid language. It allows you to get away with a lot of things that some (I guess we'll call them higher functioning languages) do not. Just keep this in mind if you ever decide to venture to another language.
I'd recommend just learning the basics of JavaScript first, get comfortable with it, understand how it works and then once you start feeling comfortable with it, pick up a framework like JQuery. JQuery is just a bunch of JavaScript functions that shorten the amount of code/time that you have to write and is fairly standard amongst many developers abilities. From here on out, pick up a something like angular or backbone; just keep your eyes on the different user communities, new products, research the pros/cons of each system. They all have things that they are better at and I've found that the type of projects that you want to build really influence the choice of framework that you will use. Also, here is a great book recommendation for JavaScript. I found this on a post in the community a while back and it's been a great resource. Not sure if there is a newer version or not.

u/hmsimha · 1 pointr/learnjavascript

> Professional Javascript for Web Developers (which is like the bible of core JS)

Here's what I don't get about this. I read through some of this book and got shot down on Hacker News in a conversation about ECMAscript vs Javascript.

Apparently, the author's claim that Javascript is composed of 3 distinct parts (Ecmascript, DOM, BOM) is completely false. For anyone interested, you can see what I'm talking about on page 3 of the Amazon preview

Not sure why a book that has such a significant mistake at the very beginning would be held in such high regard.

u/proginprocess · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

Currently Reading:
JavaScript - Professional Javascript for Web Developers

Software Design - Clean Code

Later on, I'll be reading this for Data Structures and Algorithms:
Introduction to Algorithms

Don't know what I'll do for a specific language later on. Probably go back to C# and see what I can churn out there.

u/kmongy · 1 pointr/webdev

The book you recommended is online as well. I know many swear by Eloquent JavaScript. I’ve personally learned the most from Nicholas Zara’s’ book

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-JavaScript-Developers-Nicholas-Zakas/dp/1118026691/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?keywords=zakas+javascript&qid=1562022617&s=gateway&sprefix=zakas+&sr=8-7

It is a bit dated, but you can “catch up” relatively quickly. I’m also just starting out. There’s so much out there. Hope this helps!

u/ssosina · 1 pointr/learnjavascript

I'm building sites with, minimal amount of JavaScript. I first read "professional javascript for web developers" by Nicholas Zakas and never really completed it, as it was just boring to look at.

u/robdelorean · 1 pointr/javascript

It's a little dated now but surprised Javascript for Web Developers by Nicholas Zakas isn't on there.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118026691/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_gSJEzb6NZC36P

u/marlenaq · 1 pointr/cscareerquestions

First don't feel grossly under-qualified. There is vast amounts of technical knowledge and you will never learn absolutely everything.

I was in a similar position a few years back. The bottom line is, you have to always learn, read and build things. I highly suggest this book, download the e-book version and chip away at it everyday.
https://www.amazon.com/Professional-JavaScript-Developers-Nicholas-Zakas/dp/1118026691/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

This will give you a rounded foundation and fill your head with the terms you will need in the future. Once you understand it broadly, you can start reading further material until you really cement it.

u/NookShotten · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

I started off with teamtreehouse.com and did their front-end developer track, which introduced me to HTML / CSS / Javascript. I had tried Codecademy prior to that, but I felt that it was just teaching me to follow directions, not teaching me to code.

I read the core chapters of Javascript for Professional Web Developers and then did the same for Javascript: The Definitive Guide. This is what really gave me a strong base understanding of the Javascript language (arrays, objects, prototypical inheritance, etc.).

Along the way I started using jQuery for DOM manipulation, which really made things easy, but it felt just...too easy. Like I was cheating myself by using this magical tool that I didn't really understand. So I started reviewing the DOM-related chapters of the two books I mentioned above, which is something I'm currently still undertaking.

As for AngularJS I've been trying to follow this Thinkster.io guide which I think has a pretty solid set of resources. I'm by no means an advanced AngularJS user, but hopefully in time I'll continue to grow. My current project is for my wedding, and uses an array of JS objects, each containing hotel information (name, location, description, website, etc). It then plots them on a Leaflet.js map and adds an entry in the list below each time I add a new hotel. I was pretty proud of that.

As for Node.JS, Professional Node.js has been really good so far. I learned enough to implement an XMPP bot at work, which was well received.

I'm continuing my education on Node.js--specifically with Express which I'm learning at the moment through MEAN Web Development


As for Python, I just finished my first course (Programming Fund. I) which was in Python, so I know the basic syntax. PHP I can read well enough, but sort of gave up on learning (for now) once I found server-side Javascript.


It probably seems like I read a lot of books, but I do want to mention that I haven't 'finished' these fully; I usually read it section by section, sometimes jump between books. I just have an erratic reading style, I guess.

I think the most important things are:

  • Find something you're passionate about

    I really enjoy Javascript and I think that has been a major motivator for me. I don't think I could have put the same level of effort into learning, say, PHP, which just doesn't excite me in the same way.

  • Find a solid primary resource

    I know that the accessibility and clarity of a CS-book can be totally subjective, but from what I've found there are almost always a certain set of resources people universally praise (like Definitive Guide / Good Parts / Eloquent Javascript for JS). I spend a good amount of time researching what the community for the language / framework tend to agree is the best resource.

  • Write out the examples from the books

    Especially for big tomes like The Definitive Guide which are just choke full of great snippets, I've found that its super useful to type out each example that you do not 100% understand. I've even found some errors in the books this way, which only served to help me understand how it really works even more.


  • See if there's a problem you can solve along the way

    This was big for me when it came to Node. The company I work for had a lot of traffic in their Jabber rooms and it was difficult to quantify it. I'd like to move to a SW Developer position there someday, so I decided that I'd try to solve the problem by getting a Jabber bot that monitors and records activity based on room, user, time. Having a tangible goal in a real-world context made me more motivated to figure out how I could use my tools to effectively.

  • Establish a good workflow

    Find an IDE you love and learn it inside and out. Get all those fancy-pants plugins and add-ons that make it hyper-functional. Find out which tools really 'click' for you and learn how they work. I've recently found myself very happy using Sublime Text as an IDE, Yeoman for boilerplate (love Grunt so much), and SASS as a CSS preprocessor (with Susy / Bourbon ). It just feels so satisfying having a solid setup, and I think that that kind of satisfaction with your environment makes it easier to learn.


    Overall I still think I have a lot to learn and wouldn't claim that I'm an expert in any realm yet, but eventually--with time--I hope to be.
u/LawrenceMichael · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

I checked this sites content for C and C++. What was there was more so examples than it was well-explained. Since I don't know Javascript too well, I can't say how good the guide is, but if the quality level of their C and C++ content has anything to say for them, I'd say stay away.

Reddit already has recommended places to go for this. The Learn Javascript subreddit suggests one of the following three options:


Learn Javascript from the Mozilla team's resource


Learn Javascript from Code Academy


Learn Javascript from the subreddit's study group which uses this book Professional JavaScript for Web Developers


From a very quick look, Mozilla has a lot of good content that is well-explained. It looks like most people will want to begin with the "JavaScript first steps" section if they choose this route. Compared to CodeAcademy, I think you'll walk away with a better understanding after going through everything MDN has to offer. On the otherhand, I would say CodeAcademy is easier for beginners.


If CodeAcademy stays true to its reputation, I would imagine it is very good for the beginner to get their feet wet.


The Learn Javascript study group's curriculum seems to be using a pretty good book that is supplemented by CodeAcademy and other online resources. This looks to be the most comprehensive of all the choices.

u/chubasco · 1 pointr/learnjavascript

I second CodeSchool. If you are serious about learning web development quickly, it is worth the cost. You probably should supplement it with something heavier like Professional JavaScript for Web Developers.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118026691?pc_redir=1409835416&robot_redir=1

u/llFLAWLESSll · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

I would advice you to start with Eloquent JavaScript to get the basics down, and then switch to Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, 3rd Edition
which is a book that is very thorough and will teach you A LOT of stuff(warning: it's 960 pages.)

Eloquent JavaScript: http://eloquentjavascript.net/

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers 3rd Edition: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118026691/

u/efefvi · 1 pointr/web_design
u/Mikiz · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

the 2 i used are eloquent javascript http://eloquentjavascript.net/ . There is a pretty big leap in complexity when it comes it chapter 6. Don't worry if it goes over your head if youàre completely new. It has an epub free download you can convert to mobi for kindle or a kindle version on amazon.

Professional JavaScript for Web Developers http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118026691/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=0GCE9EKQN5N6N9W1HNNS&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=1970559082&pf_rd_i=desktop is a more indepth book on JS. Explores everything with good examples but doesn't have exercises. I recommend it as a second book.

u/gators1240 · 1 pointr/gamedev
u/AresProductions · 1 pointr/gamedev

Try to find similar games and study how they evolve as you pass the levels etc.

After doing that think what elements can you change in order to make your game feel more unique.
Also try to think about how those elements will appear as the player progresses. Try to combine them in different ways so that he will get challenged even more.

Last, you said that the game is a platformer, you can check out this book,! http://www.amazon.com/Level-Guide-Great-Video-Design/dp/1118877160?ie=UTF8&keywords=game%20design&qid=1465499193&ref_=sr_1_4&sr=8-4
It has general thoughts on design but specializes in platformer too!

u/Evey9207 · 1 pointr/gamedev

Hey so I don't know gamedev's opinion on the book Level up!, But that's the first book about game design that I got when I started and it helped me understand a lot about the process of game design.

It is a very frustrating but very rewarding process. In the end when people try your game and you see them have a blast, that is the best feeling ever.

u/JabawaJackson · 1 pointr/gamedesign

I actually got this one for one of my classes and was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading it. I even finished it before my classes started.

u/space_noodel · 1 pointr/gamedesign

I use the templates from this book.

u/MirokuOsami · 1 pointr/gamedev

Level Up by Scott Rogers is great! I've had my tattered copy for years and it's by far one of the best game dev books I've read. He also goes over a lot more things than level design, so I'd highly recommend it.

u/emomartian · 1 pointr/gamemaker

Not GML-specific but these are my two favorite game development books.

Try out this one for software architecture, wish I read it earlier
Read this to get thinking about game design

u/MaxPlay · 1 pointr/gamedesign

Game Design has nothing to do with programming. Familiarize yourself with the different roles in development and you will find books for the right topics. r/gamedesign is nice on its own. Depending on your use of technology, you might want to look into the corresponding subs aswell.

Good reads on game design are Level Up! and The Art of Game Design.

u/cparen · 1 pointr/spaceengineers

> It's not about a tutorial, it's about making the early game fun.

Ah, I think I see where I misunderstood. Yeah, first time I played, winter a year ago, I tried to do that. Had the bad luck of getting a starting asteroid that only had iron, nickel and uranium. Dug through it like swiss cheese before I realized I had to trek over to a neighboring asteroid. Still, it was pretty fast.

I think you're right -- it might be nice if it spawned a couple "scripted" asteroids near you that had some tiny deposits of everything (minus U). Then, beyond that, you'd have to search, but at least you could have agency on how you did that search.

In a sense, you're pointing out that walking is not gameplay. You're totally right.

> Sorry, didn't mean to be a dick. Well, I did, but I'm still sorry.

LOL, it's the internet. It's kind of expected. Thanks though!

u/tbone28 · 1 pointr/gamedev
u/bornin_1988 · 1 pointr/tabletopgamedesign

> Building Blocks of tabletop Game Design

Your comment got me curious so I checked Amazon. It looks like a very large percentage of the book is available for preview Here https://www.amazon.com/Building-Blocks-Tabletop-Game-Design/dp/1138365491. Gonna definitely read some myself!

u/SuperRisto · 1 pointr/gamedesign

Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design by Geoffrey Engelstein is a books that lists a lot of common rule structures for board games. Its useful to reference when design board games. Each chapter lists a number of ways other games tackle design problems and mentions numerous examples of games and their specific implementation.

Here's a podcast where they talk about the book!

u/unwary · 1 pointr/gamedev

First learn C# then read this book: Learning XNA 4.0.

In the book you learn how to make a simple 2d game and 3d game. Try it out!

u/GigantorSmash · 0 pointsr/livesound

not trying to be snarky, but hire a pro. randomly, and blindly throwing acoustic treatments into an environment is a quick way to waste money.

treatments are not universal, and different treatments and approaches are used to deal with different issues.

what issues are you trying to deal with by using these "clouds"

what dose the architect, GC, acoustician and the HVAC/ mechanical contractor, and the electrical/ lighting contractor? Any of these parties will have something to say, as you need to know flow treatment will be supported by the building structure, not block HVAC ducting or airflow. not obstruct/ interfere with lighting, work esthetically within the space, meets code, dose not interfere with any installed sound/ pa coverage and then control/ adjust the sound of the room.


all that being said heres a decent enough book start with as far as reference material
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Everest/dp/0071841040/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467930274&sr=1-1



u/cironoric · 0 pointsr/MUD
u/latticusnon · -1 pointsr/DotA2

Here you go.

I should have said "basic" instead of "simple." As in this is a fundamental thing your game engine should be capable of. It is simple in that it's not a unique problem, it has been solved before and there's no reason you would have to reinvent the wheel here.

u/Krothesis · -1 pointsr/GamerGhazi

I think its because it literally says she contributed to the book on the page Source
> "FEATURING: IAN BOGOST - LEIGH ALEXANDER - ZOE QUINN - ANITA SARKEESIAN & KATHERINE CROSS - IAN SHANAHAN - ANNA ANTHROPY - EVAN NARCISSE - HUSSEIN IBRAHIM - CARA ELLISON & BRENDAN KEOGH - DAN GOLDING - DAVID JOHNSTON - WILLIAM KNOBLAUCH - MERRITT KOPAS - OLA WIKANDER"

And you don't get featured in a book without contributing to it in some way