Game Design Books

Not as helpful or informative as I had expected and hoped for. It could have done with more detail on the actual construction of a tire house.

Good general reference on building a house from tires. Well organized, concise. A "work in progress" and seems to get better with each adition.

I have been fortunate enough to meet Ed Paschich and hear how passionate he is about protecting the planet and building with a focus on cost, aesthetics, and ecological responsibility. In my opinion, he is a builder and designer before his time that has an understanding of the long-term needs of our ecosystems that deserves far more exploration and respect.

This book and his one on straw bale design are well written and intelligently conceived. The images are beautiful and the words inspirational. I would recommend this to anyone with an eye to sustainability and habitat-preservation, even if they are not yet considering building their own home.

I recommend Web Color Expert for anyone seriously interested making a professional looking web page. The basic color theory taught in this book is essential in the visual presentation of a web page. The downside though is the whole technical part of the book is done entirely through the eyes of a apple computer, though the programs are on both the PC and the Mac so there isn't too much of a difference in the location of things. The book almost specifically uses Dreamweaver though out all of its examples. And the step-by-step fashion it's displayed in makes it really easy to follow and understand.
It begins with an introduction to color theory and then goes into color and how the computer affects it. Web Color Expert even touches upon the issues of color-blindness. The book elaborates upon html and color and the many programs used. Basic design and technical elements are discussed in a step-by-step layout. It goes onto describe in great length computer images and techniques to present them on a website. Flash and movies are covered last. Basic Flash techniques are shown from basic motion tweening to more complex morphs. The movie portion, which is the last portion of the book shows how to put Quicktime movies on a website and different ways to display it.

I just picked this book up from the library, and have decided not to buy it. As you can see from the below reviews, it does indeed contain some useful technical advice, but nothing that you could not read in any primer on Photoshop, Dreamweaver or general web design book. I was hoping to find a book elaborating on color theory, color schemes & color psychology, but no such luck. You get about 10 pages about this, then it moves on to calibrating monitors, applying anti-aliasing and creating layers in Dreamweaver. Not recommended if you need a deeper insight into color theory.

While this book covers the importance of a Web-safe color palette and what colors vibrate, shock, stand out and clash, it covers a lot more territory that one would expect.

Extremely Mac-friendly, the book is busting w/ screenshots from Mac OS 10.x (aqua interface), including many industry standard applications such as Fireworks and Photoshop. This should not scare away the Windows user, as color theory and the applications used are cross-platform.

Topics and skills such as image slicing, transparent backgrounds, animated graphics and more are explained in detail.

Adding color into Macromedia Flash and even adding your own splash into QuickTime movies is explored. This book is a true treasure trove of skills and knowledge... and the person looking for this book may never need the information and the person needing this information may never think to look in this book for that information in the first place.

This will be a mainstay on my reference shelf as I continue to push the envelope in Web design while balancing the needs of the visually impaired and the limits of the browsers currently available.

lego manuals without Colors are like the ocean without water.
The book is nice but I am not going to buy another B & W lego book.

Great mix of robots in this book--some "standard" variations on familiar prototypes (using UBS parts) and some pretty out there ones as well that I would have never thought of. Excellent book. I've seen the RIS one that came before this but didn't buy it--I'm going to go back and get it now.

I really enjoyed this book and it's clear and concise coverage on color. I like finding out what makes those Amish quilts so great and I'm translating the lesson into my new quilts. Buy it!

I enjoyed Ms. Horton's talk about color and Amish quilts on Alex Anderson's "Simply Quilts." So I bought the book thinking there would be a lot more information. Yes, she does have some color info and pictures of Amish style quilts, but the actual color illustrations are limited and positioned in the middle of the book. It would have been more helpful to have had several color examples along side the info and explanations given.

I don't buy a book about color to see black and white diagrams.

Ever since I played Chris Crawford's "Balance of the Planet" I have been a fan of his. In this book he describes in detail what goes into the game design including many examples from his own experience. The biggest problems with this book are that it is some what dated, and I wish it was thicker. Richard W. Smith

As written in the early eighties, this book is one of the pioneer works seriously about video game. It talks about such topics as what is a game, why people play games, and how to design a game. The author's rich and plentiful experience in game design is undeniable, but the arguments in the book are somewhat restricted only to his own personal opinions. To a certain extent, there is no ground, as backed up from careful research, to justify these claims. Either, the author has not been able to connect his viewpoints to the works of other people. Whether other designers have similar beliefs, thus supporting his arguments? Even though similar works on game design may hardly be found at the time, relating to the experiences transferable from other disciplines is possible. Despite this, as a whole, the author does throw some light on the area, which is enough to make this book well worth reading.

While this is a good resource for those of us who are experienced sewers, there is not much helpful information on theatrical costuming. Starting about 1/3 of the way through the book there are chapters on ballet, irish dance, ballroom dance, etc. and are very useful if that's the type of costuming you're involved with. The photographs of the costumes used in historical re-enactments are simply, amazing, and probably useful if that's what you're looking for. I would say this book is very light on theatrical costuming, and while I've gotten some good tips from the book that I've actually used (an easy way to make a 9 gore skirt w/o a pattern), it mostly gets ignored.

Mary Burke Morris' The Costume Book requires intermediate to advanced sewing skills and a prior interest in costume creation, but any working with theater or dance productions who regularly sew such costumes will find it an invaluable reference. Chapters come packed with photos and line drawings, overviews of basic design principles, and instructions which quickly lend to production efforts.

I have been a puzzle addict for over 50 years ,have a collection of over 500 'puzzle books',and am continually adding to it ;particularly with the help of Sterling for the last several years.They deserve a big thanks for all their efforts.
A quick thumb through,actually usually 30 seconds or less,and I either buy it ,or pass it by.This one looked pretty good ,so now I have it.
As always, with Sterling,the construction the paper quality ,illustrations and color are supurb.
As I started going through the book,I was really enjoying it but as I reached the mid point ,I became less enchanted with it.
Here's why.
While many of the puzzles were familiar to me from other books and puzzle makers,many were simply a re-do of old classics.Even that was OK.As a matter of fact the puzzle on pge 131 was a very different take on the Tangram;At least I don't recall seeing it before. Also the maze on page 133 was also a good twist on mazes.The construction puzzle on page 119 was also different.The vanishing birds on page is just a re-do of Sam Loyd,s vasishing chinese man puzzle that has been done as Leprechauns,trees ,animals,and you name it.
So why only 3 stars?
Many of the puzzles require cutting up the book,an absolute no-no to any book lover or making copies ,even transparencies;both black and white or color.Then there is the puzzle on page 60, a takeoff on a puzzle that is often sold as a jigsaw puzzle with a mylar coated cylinder included in with it.Then we get on page 152 one that requires 3-D glasses;like everyone just happens to have a pair in their hip pocket!
I hope I've made my point.This book should have come with separate pieces in a pouch or something like that;so they would be available to do the puzzles without a bunch of construction, negating the destruction of the book.At the very least ,there should have been a warning on the front cover.This is not a new idea and has been done many times before.
I am surprised the editorial reviews didn't pick op on this.The names of the two authors were unknown to me in the puzzle book field and they appear more to be into creating classroom aids.All the more so, this book would have been a much better product with the additions I suggest.
I think both young people in a class as well as adults would enjoy this great mix of puzzles; but if either a decision to save a small amount at publishing or just a lack of thought is the reason;what would have been a first class effort is just a so-so result.
the old adage certainly applies here:
"Anything worth doing is worth doing right."

This is a fun and very original and easy to read book. You should see all the ways that colors and shapes can fool you. Really astonishing! At the same time, you'll discover a huge quantity of geometric illusions, paradoxical puzzles, impossible objects, etc... If you like Sam Loyds, you should get this book! I also suggest this book for class activities to develop maths and spatial sense.

We've used this text since the 1st edition in ART 250 Intro to Digital Practices at the University at Buffalo. It is simply the best, most comprehensive volume covering all the major applications we use in class. Just the right amount of background theory, coupled with good technical foundations, and exercises sprinkled throughout that students can tackle at their own pace. The 2nd edition did grow long in the tooth, and we tried a couple other texts, but they all fell short -- either too technical or too deep in theory. The authors are very receptive to feedback, and they were able to convince the publishers that a 3rd Edition was needed. It is the best edition yet.

I use this book to teach computer graphics I, but I think the reference is getting dated. They need to release a newer version to match the current software.

This is a fairly in depth look at what it takes to build a game, from a game designers standpoint. It covers picking your subject matter, your target audience, building your design document, what you need to know to work with those who implement your design, and many more topics. Pretty much every facet is explored. The author occasionally sprinkles anecdotes and stories from his nearly 17+ years of experience designing games. The style isn't boring at all. I might agree with the one other reviewer that this may not necessarily be the end all, but over all it's the best I've seen on the subject.

The only real cons about the book is the fact that now it's about 10 years old, and things have changed quite a bit. Also, as the other reviewer said, the cd is pretty much worthless. It was something the publisher probably felt they needed to have since everyone else was doing it. Occasionally the author will be wrong about a few things, but that's to be expected, as any single author can't have possibly played or been involved with every computer game or genre invented.

So if you want a good breakdown of what it takes to make games from the designer's perspective, this is the book to get. (Plus 35 cents at the time I am reviewing this is a steal).

Overall, I find this book very valuable but can not believe there isn't an example of any of the forms it describes in so much detail. I would recommend this book to those getting started in the software design or pre-production phase, but it wont be the end all book on this subject.

Also, this book must contain what amounts to the most useless CD-ROM of any computer book I have seen. Although before I purchased this book, I looked for a description of the CD-ROM contents, I thought, surely it must be examples of the design documents, but only found obsolete shareware game demos. It is almost as if the publisher wanted to charge an extra few dollars by including a CD-ROM...any CD-Rom.

The text provides easy to follow step by step intructions for becoming proficient in the use of Fireworks. The font was of a large of enough size and the individual intructions were nicely separated in an ordered list. Easy to read and not skip a sentence or paragraph when looking back and forth from screen to text to screen. Very nice skills review and knowledge assessemt at the end of each lesson. The construction of the text as a spiral book allows one to lay it flat on your desk with holding the pages down. A great reference book as well. I recommend it.

This is a excellent book that made Fireworks understandable to me. I tried an earlier version of Fireworks some years ago, playing with it and trying to figure things out for myself, but after reading the first 35 pages of this book, I learned so many more tips and tricks, I felt that the price of the book was well worth it. The book is intelligently written and easy to understand, and you are guided through Fireworks in a friendly and helpful, and thankfully not arogant way.

The book is written by an author that plainly has the desire and ability to teach the reader the "ins and outs" of the software. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Fireworks MX 2004.