THE VERY BEST GAMES CREATION BOOKS reviewed by D'Lynn Waldron. PhD

Reviewed by D'Lynn Waldron, PhD. ©2006 Winner of the Golden Crane Award for lessons in the graphic arts
THESE REVIEWS MAY BE FREELY REPRODUCED
BOOKS ON CREATING GAMES

Games are now the largest single sector of the entertainment industry, and the Games sector is expanding in size and scope at a very rapid rate.

Click on this anchor link for a fun and informative story about movie music composer who wants a chance to score a game.
http://www.dlynnwaldron.com/ComposingMovieMusic.html#Anchor-SCORING-47857

The production values in games are now rivaling those in movies meaning there are good careers for people with a wide variety of talents. A new hot area is developing games that are played on the screens of cell phones.

New Riders now has a New Riders Games 'NRG' series that publishes books for games creators.

The Los Angles Philharmonic with the John Alexander Chorale performed video game music in the Hollywood Bowl on July 6th, 2005, in the first concert of a multi-city tour each using a local symphony orchestra. It was an exciting evening with a variety of musical forms, including traditional and modern symphonic. Below are photographs by D'Lynn Waldron and the program of the night. One of the evening's most impressive combinations of symphonic music and spectacular graphics, God of War, was not listed in the ads, perhaps because it's rating might give parents the misimpression that the evening would not be suitable for younger children. Among the composers present was Tim Larkin whose wide variety of work was represented by Myst.

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BEGINNING GAME PROGRAMMING
By Michael Morrison
600 pages, almost all text with a few grayscale illustrations Win CD
$34.95 ISBN: 0672326590 SAMS 2004
www.samspublishing.com

This will get you started in the fastest growing segment of the entertainment industry. It will take you through designing and developing seven complete games and creating your own reusable game engine. You will be able to give your games the professional elements.
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BEGINNING 3D GAME PROGRAMMING
By Tom Miller
418 pages, almost all text with a few grayscale illustrations Win CD
$34.95 ISBN: 067232661-2 SAMS 2005
www.samspublishing.com

This introduces you to the important 3D aspect of creating games and takes you step by step through creating the elements of a 3D game.

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BLACK ART OF VIDEO GAME CONSOLE DESIGN
Author: Andre La Mothe
954 pages, grayscale illustrations, CD with source code, design files, development tools, etc. includes the e-book version of the related earlier book Black Art of 3D Game Programming
$59.99 ISBN 0-672-32820-8 SAMS 2006
www.samspublishing.com

This book is for the game creation guru who wants to understand both the hardware and the software. Anyone who aspires to a managerial position in the game industry would improve his chances by being able to offer expertise in both hardware and software, but it is not a easy study and requires a background in several foundation sciences.

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CREATING THE ART OF THE GAME
Author: Mathhew Omernick
large format, 286 pages, color illustrations
$39.99 ISBN 0-7357-1409-6 New Riders 2004
www.newriders.com

Mathew Omernick has had a very impressive career and is currently with LucasArts Entertainment. His specialty is now creating 3D art for video games, and this book is a very well written and comprehensive introduction to that subject.

You are introduced to the technology that is used to create 3D art for video games and see examples of how it is used. This book is the best possible starting place for anyone who aspires to be a video games artist.
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CREATING EMOTION IN GAMES
Author: David Freeman
large format, 540 pages, mostly text, some color illustrations
New Riders 2004 $49.99
ISBN 0-5927-3007-8
www.newriders.com

For a game to be effective, the player has to become emotionally involved with the characters, and this book explains with many examples how that can be done. The book tells how to create gut-wrenching surprises for the player's character, how to create non-player characters that have an emotional dimension, and how to create games that will leave the player with more than just having had an entertainment.

This is not a book for those who lack a literary turn of mind and it reads very like the books on how to write a screenplay, with chapters on things like 'First Person Character Arc Techniques'.
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GAME CREATION AND CAREERS: Insider Secrets from Industry Experts.
Authors: Mark Saltzman with many others
770 pages, mostly text
New Riders 2004 $49.99
ISBN 0-7357-1367-7
www.newriders.com

To be successful in any career, you have to know how the industry works and the best ways to get ahead, and in this book the people who really know give you their insider advice.

You will learn how games are created, beginning with design and development, through production and marketing, and get valuable advice on how to get a start in the industry and then have a successful career.

There forty contributors to this very large book and it is not something most people would sit down and read cover to cover, but instead they would select what they find of interest. It is also a useful reference.
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ANDREW ROLLINGS & ERNEST ADAMS ON GAME DESIGN
Authors: Andrew Rollings & Ernest Adams
540 pages, mostly text, some grayscale screen captures
New Riders 2004 $49.99
ISBN 0-5927-3001-9
www.newriders.com

Going from idea to completed game is a complex process. Rollings and Adams describe this in great detail, with elaboration in the form of examples from games and references to classic forms of storytelling.

This is a densely written book that would not be my choice for the prospective or beginning game creator, nor for anyone whose reading skills do not include mental outlining. This same material could be presented in a concise, outline-organized form with a more visually interesting and communicative page layout.

This book covers:
- What makes a good game story
- Presenting your idea from concept to threatment to full script.
- Creating games in the major genra
- The essentials of user interface design.
- Making your game fun and fair
- Multiplayer game design
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TRICKS OF THE 3D GAME PROGRAMMING GURUS-Advanced 3D Graphics and Rasterization
By Andre LaMothe
1758 pages, text with code and diagrams Win CD
$59.99 ISBN: 0672318350 SAMS 2004
www.samspublishing.com

This is a book for programmers who implement design concepts using complex coding. It is a massive fine-print tome that is only for someone who wants to be a state-of-the-art professional game programer.

This book will get you up to professional game programming level using an advanced real-time engine for which the source code is on the CD. You will go from pixel plotting and wire frame 3D to a 16-bit RGB, z-buffered 3D engine. You will learn about 1/z buffering, alpha blending, texture filtering, spatial partitioning, etc.
www.samspublishing.com
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