Quickstart Guide to Game Design

Good book. The writing is direct and the author is honest about limits.

I have been working with game development for a few years now and I still found plenty here that was new to me. I found myself making notes in the margins, which is always a good sign. The exercises at the end of each chapter are worth doing — they caught a few misconceptions I did not know I had. Worth picking up if you already have the basics. Set realistic expectations and you will get a lot out of it.

This is the one to get if you are serious about game development.

I was looking for something that would bridge the gap between tutorials and proper reference material, and this does that well. Some terminology is introduced without much ceremony; I had to look a few things up along the way. The author avoids over-explaining, which keeps the pace up but means you need to pay attention. I have already recommended it to two colleagues and will recommend it to more.

Mixed feelings. The good parts are genuinely good; the rest is forgettable.

A colleague recommended this and I can see why. It does something that few technical books manage: it respects the reader's time. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. The author avoids over-explaining, which keeps the pace up but means you need to pay attention. Three stars feels about right. It will stay on my shelf, but it will not be the first one I reach for.