Quickstart Guide to Game Design

The clearest explanation of game development I have come across.

This is the third book I have read on game development this year, and it is comfortably the best of them. I found myself making notes in the margins, which is always a good sign. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. The balance between theory and practice is well judged; neither side dominates. This is the book I wish had existed when I started working with game development.

Well worth picking up if you already have the basics.

I read this over a couple of weekends alongside a small side project, which turned out to be the ideal way to approach it. The author clearly knows the subject deeply and has thought hard about how to teach it. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. The book rewards careful reading. Skimming it would be a mistake. A good addition to a technical library, as long as you know what you are buying.

Genuinely excellent — I finished it in a week and immediately started again.

I have been working with game development for a few years now and I still found plenty here that was new to me. There is a section near the end that ties several earlier ideas together in a way I had not seen before. The writing is direct and does not waste space on filler, which I value in a technical book. The writing is direct and does not waste space on filler, which I value in a technical book. This is the book I wish had existed when I started working with game development.