Books on Games

Just finished a non-fiction book called "The Complete Guide to Game Dvelopment, Art & Design" by David McCarthy, Ste Curran and Simon Byron. As the title suggested, it's a book about games and its development cycle.

Some of the facts are quite interesting, to say the least. Developing a game is not as easy as having an idea anymore. There is so many things that need to be thought through even before the coding starts, like sequeals, marketing, the game mechanics, etc. Gaming is such a huge industry now that it's worth billion and billion of dollars.

All these games nowadays I reckon has the problem of must have 3D graphics and must look nice. Whatever happens to gameplay, the mechanics, the story and the simple graphics? That's why I like the DS, the graphics engine is nothing like that of PSP, but the games, boy, are they great. Games like Super Mario Brothers, Brain Age, Pokemon and Animal Crossing. They don't need pretty 3D graphics to attract players. They do that by having a attractive gameplay, great story, innovative design, etc. That's what the game industry needs. Pretty graphics certain won't hurt, but it should not be the be-all and end-all.

Anyway, back to the book. If anyone is interested in reading about how games are designed, coded, tested and how the marketing people try to take the money off you, you should read this book.