Asked by MightyCow_DontFollow 20 months ago

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I have a cousin who is graduating from High School and is interested in computer game development. I am looking for a good graduation present for him, and would love some recommendations.

I do not want a book about how to design levels, or how to learn a programming language - I'm sure he'll get plenty of that in school. What I'm more interested in is something like a biography of a famous game designer, a book about the psychology of how to make a game fun and challenging, stories about what it's like to create games, and things of that nature.

Not instruction manuals, more slice of life kinds of books so he might get a feel for what it's like to be a game developer, or the kinds of things they think about when designing a game.


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"A list of some possibilities"

 by supergrover on Jun 14 2008 (20 months ago)
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Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution


The Soul Of A New Machine

 

Soul is about hardware, Hackers is about early computer history, more directly related to games.

I have read these, both are well written. See the reviews on Amazon for the rest of the list.

 


Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture


Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic

 

biographies of game developers, closest to what you asked for.

 

~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~  
The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon

Zap: The Rise and Fall of Atari
Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children

Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-playing Games

game history

 


Revolutionaries at Sony: The Making of the Sony Playstation

Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft’s Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution

about developing game hardware

 


Postmortems from Game Developer: Insights from the Developers of Unreal Tournament, and Other Top-Selling Games

real world stories with developers


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