Video Game Development

Do you love gaming? Do you have ideas for games of your own and want to learn how to produce them professionally? Longtime game designer Justin Gary has the answers you seek. After 20 years in the gaming industry, creating such games as Solforge, Ascension, and the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game, Justin is now sharing all his secrets in Think Like a Game Designer. Best of all, Justin’s secrets are really simple, practical, and common sense steps you can take yourself.

UNLOCK YOUR GAME'S NARRATIVE POTENTIAL! With increasingly sophisticated video games being consumed by an enthusiastic and expanding audience, the pressure is on game developers like never before to deliver exciting stories and engaging characters. With Video Game Storytelling, game writer and...

Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason...

Can video games be used to teach personal and business success lessons? Mastering The Game: What Video Games Can Teach Us About Success In Life takes a look at how the same habits and principles that lead to success when playing video games can be applied to personal and business success. Principles are ideas that are truly timeless, and remain true independent of context, culture or time period. So what are the principles embedded in the most popular video games? Surprisingly, the list strongly resembles the most in demand traits for the workplace. • Adaptability & Managing Change • ...

Plan, write and ship a story-driven game your small team can actually finish, with the tools the classic adventure games were built on. When a story-driven indie game stalls, the writing is rarely the main problem. The story was planned like a film and built like a game: every branch, room and line has to be made, tested and translated, and the script grows faster than the team. Adventure games solved this decades ago, because in an adventure game the story and the play are the same thing. This revised 2026 edition, rewritten from the first page, turns their methods into a practical toolkit...

Nintendo has continually set the standard for video game innovation in America, starting in 1981 with a plucky hero who jumped over barrels to save a girl from an ape. The saga of Mario, the portly plumber who became the most successful franchise in the history of gaming, has plot twists worthy of a video game. Jeff Ryan shares the story of how this quintessentially Japanese company found success in the American market.

The book guides you through a step-by-step process of making a commercial game. It teaches you how to learn all the necessary skills and covers various aspects of game development: mindset, preproduction, funding, business, law, development, marketing, PR, publishing, distribution, as well as pre-launch, launch, and post-launch strategies. 

It was the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal had redefined American politics. Taxes were at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had created a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business had many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom was diminishing... and many were desperate to take that freedom back.

How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself is a guide for anyone who wants to make their own video game. Listen to this book to learn how to locate the itch you're eager to scratch, how to pick a game engine to power your vision, and how to find the fun in your game. Most importantly, this book helps you guide your project to the finish line. Written from personal experience by a video game industry veteran and podcaster, it's packed with handmade drawings and charts

A Step-by-Step Master Class in Indie Game Development, from the Creator of the Emmy® Winning Neverwinter Nights™ Honors for Don Daglow's From Dream to Delivery books: Winner, 2019 Independent Press Book Awards Winner, Kirkus Top 100 Indie Books of 2019 Finalist, 2020 Top Shelf Book Awards Finalist, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist, National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist, Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist, Book Excellence Awards "Don Daglow has survived 40+ years creating games and always retained his positive attitude. Learn from the master." – Jeff Braun, ...

Unlock the secrets of addictive game design with "Level Up Addiction: Crafting Irresistible Game Loops." This comprehensive guide explores the art of creating captivating game loops that keep players coming back for more. Our book takes you behind the scenes of successful video games, unraveling the psychological tricks and techniques that make players click 'continue.' From the perfect reward systems to the most engaging progression mechanics, 'Level Up Addiction' is your blueprint to crafting immersive gaming experiences. 🔸 Discover the science behind player motivation and engagement. ...

When his satirical musings in a college newspaper got him discharged from the Air Force, it became clear to Walt Williams that his destiny in life was to be a writer - he just never thought he'd end up writing video games, let alone working on some of the most successful franchises in the industry - Bioshock, Civilization, Borderlands, and Mafia, among others. Williams pulls back the curtain on an astonishingly profitable industry that has put its stamp on pop culture and yet is little known to those outside its walls.

For twelve years, Alexis Kennedy has been writing some of the most original and intelligent narrative games of the last decade - Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Cultist Simulator, and more, as well as guest-writing gigs for BioWare, Paradox and Telltale Games. And for most of that time, he's been writing *about* games as well. Here for the first time in one place are the best of his essays and columns - from hard-won lessons about game development to reviews of unreviewable games, from narrative design principles to writing masterclasses, from historical discursions on labyrinths to the ...

From the bestselling author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels comes the next definitive, behind-the-scenes account of the video game industry: how some of the past decade's most renowned studios fell apart—and the stories, both triumphant and tragic, of what happened next. Jason Schreier's...

Your guide to being a better Game Designer! (or to become one) This book is for game designers of all experience levels and also for the teams, developers, and support staff they work with. It showcases the reality of what game designers actually do (or should be doing) and sheds light on some widespread misconceptions of the job. This is an easy-to-read, practical guide for the following people: Game Designers: Understand what Game Designers really own and the skills required to be successful. Anyone can design games but not everyone is a Game Designer. What distinguishes those two is the ...

The Art of Game Design guides you through the design process step-by-step, helping you to develop new and innovative games that will be played again and again. It explains the fundamental principles of game design and demonstrates how tactics used in classic board, card, and athletic games also...

Have a game idea that won’t leave you alone? Turning it into a finished, playable release takes more than inspiration. Indie Game Development helps you move from that first spark to a practical plan for building, testing, launching, and supporting your game. Start by shaping your concept into a clear promise for players. Define who the game is for, identify its central appeal, and set a scope that fits your time, skills, budget, and tools. Then learn how to test the heart of the experience early, using simple prototypes and focused playtests to discover what feels exciting, what causes ...

You absolutely can. And you don't need a computer science degree, an artistic background, or any previous coding experience to do it. In Unreal Engine 5 for Beginners, industry veteran and interactive media educator Irene Bolton strips away the intimidating jargon and technical gatekeeping to hand you the ultimate "dummy-proof" guide to game creation. Over her twelve-year career building everything from indie puzzles to massive action-adventure titles, Irene has proven that the power of Unreal Engine 5 belongs to everyone—not just seasoned engineers. This book is the step-by-step ...

A Spiritual Path to Responsible Use of Digital Gaming. “If you suffer from digital gaming addiction, I strongly encourage you to use this book as your road map to get you back to the real world.” -- Michael Stelzner, Founder of Social Media Examiner.An effective solution to the challenge of Digital Gaming Addiction (aka Video Game Addiction) based on the rich and successful tradition of the Twelve Steps. Addiction to Digital Gaming is a troubling phenomenon that has burst upon society with alarming speed. Many people crave the use of Digital Games in a strikingly similar way to any ...

A former gamer and Harvard-trained psychiatrist offers a proven, tested plan to help parents define, set, and reinforce healthy boundaries around video games and help kids who have developed an addiction to gaming. How much should I let them play? How do I get them to be interested in anything...