The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design,   ISBN:9781580650663

Customer Rating: 

Here are my reasons for the stars and why this book is important for anyone looking to try game writing.

1-This book is easy to read and the concepts easy to understand and get you quickly writng or writing again.
2-It also helps you with whatever problems that you have with your writing or improve upon it.
3-Gives you some insight (though from a personal and professional standpoint) as to what is expected from you as a writer.
4-Gives you excercises to help get you in the frame of mind that gets you writing.
5-Gives you a layout format to help you when you are writing.

Notice that I said write alot. These guys wrote this book for the people looking to write and help design games. If you are a designer and then read this book may feel a little cheated cause they really didn't go in too much detail in what or how that process is done. Yes writing does play a big part just as the programmers and coding that goes into a game. When you have to re-write something that could mean meeting your goals or just putting something out that totally misses the mark completely or even your job. They do go into how the design and writing the game go hand and hand but once again that process or how a designer gets it done is not there. IT is to give the aspiring writers something tangible to read and gives you more then what you thought that went into game writing. Once again I'm writing my own game and this book helped in so many different ways that I'm in the process of revising my game and how it is written and how it will look and feel and play. The thing that I found that this book really drove home the point is that if you are writing a game or any media medium that everything will fall in your lap and if you don't know how to weather the storm you can and almost will be lost. I mentioned in one of the reasons is that they drew on their personal and professional trips through the gaming business and gives you some tips on how to conduct business as a writer in the business. This book is for anyone looking to get into game writng or any writing medium today.

Customer Rating: 

Overall, the book is a well written introduction to writing for video games. Calling this book an "ultimate guide" is a bit of an exaggeration, but it's a good jumping-off point for an aspiring game writer.

Unfortunately, the book is lacking in content on design. I can't really fault the authors on this one... their experience is primarily in writing, not game design.

The final part of the book contains realistic advice on breaking in to the industry and surviving once you get in.

The book also contains several creative exercises (called "Action Items") peppered throughout. Although they weren't the focus of the book, the action items were (in my opinion) one of the best parts of this book. If I buy this book, it will be because of the exercises.

I recommend picking up this book at your local public library if you're looking to break into the game industry and work as a script writer for games. If you're already writing for games, then chances are that you already know most of what this book has to teach.

Customer Rating: 

This is my teen daughter's review:

I've read most of this book, but even without finishing it, I've liked it a lot. The action items are really valuable to extending your creativity and skill for video game writing and design. So far, this book isn't about the artwork so much as it is about the character, game, and story structure. At first I picked up, thinking it would be boring and/or way over my head, but this book really shows you the ins and outs of video game writing/design, in a way that is both realistic and quite interesting. If you do the action items throughout the book, like I'm doing, you'll find your video game thoughts will become ideas, and your ideas will grow more substantial as you find inspiration. Also, the authors give you some scenarios and examples about working in a video gaming job, what problems may arise and how to overcome and work around them, how to cooperate with your team members, etc. This book is really enjoyable to read too, and is even humorous. These guys really know what they're talking about, and they're wonderful authors now too! This book is important to read, practically a MUST if you are interested in becoming a video game designer/writer. Thank you to the authors for writing this helpful and amazing book!

Customer Rating: 

The book is an excellent introduction for those looking to start working in the game development field; it's also a valuable resource for those who already are. Although it is not a programming book that teaches how to write code to build a game it gives you the foundations about what to take into account to develop this kind of applications and be successful.

Customer Rating: 

First thing I want to say about this book is that it is indeed well written, easy to understand and gives some good hints and practices for the design of a video game. The last section also is very insightful as to how a game scenario idea should be presented ( this last part is at least worth a star out of five ). These were the pros.
About the cons. I think a book like that should give some more information about the differences between the stages of production and some more information on the stages themselves. Anyone interested in gaming programming will feel a bit disappointed as there is barely a mention in this book regarding it (except the occasional remark that we should consider the programming limitations when thinking of a scenario...). The hints though clever, are nothing that an able storyteller won't be able to find for himself after a good night's sleep and some creative thinking and if you don't have the latter you should not consider making video games either way. All in all maybe a four would also be appropriate but considering I couldn't manage to read it all ( some sections I found too boring to read ) I think for me a three would suffice.