Game Design and Development: Code, Psychology and Analytics (Paperback)

A few useful pages, but mostly material I had seen better elsewhere.

I came to this book already familiar with the basics, and it still had plenty to offer. The author is unusually honest about where the simplifications break down, which I appreciated. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. The balance between theory and practice is well judged; neither side dominates. Two stars. The subject deserves a better treatment than this.

I got a lot out of this, even if a few sections felt rushed.

I picked this up after getting stuck on a project and it turned out to be exactly the right book at the right time. The chapters on javascript are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. The early chapters move quickly through material I already knew, but the later sections were genuinely new to me. Worth picking up if you already have the basics. Set realistic expectations and you will get a lot out of it.

Good in places. I would borrow it before buying if you can.

I bought this on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a forum thread, and I am glad I did. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. The exercises at the end of each chapter are worth doing — they caught a few misconceptions I did not know I had. Fine, but there are stronger books on the same subject if you look around.