Chris Crawford on Game Design

Description

I agree with what most of the other reviewers have said, but I guess I enjoyed it slightly less. The first thing to know about this book is that you'll learn next to nothing about game design by reading it. Crawford even lists some *other* books to read to learn the subject. This book if first and foremost about curling up by a fireside and listening to (reading) someone with an enormous ego and an equally large chip on his shoulder, rant about the video game industry. He'll tell you you'll never make it, he'll tell you good design is essential in the success of a game project, and laugh at projects that failed due to (he claims) bad game design. Then you'll hear him tell you what a bad designer Carmack (sp?) of Doom fame is, and how the best game he (Crawford) ever designed was a huge commercial flop. And lots of other borderline crazy rantings. There's also a lot of completely worthless fluff in the book, like really long-winded, pointless excercises in trying to define certain words like "game" and "interactive" and so forth. But tucked in between the ranting, boasting, and fluff, almost by accident, there seem to be a few thought provoking passages and some decently entertaining stories. I'm not sorry that I read this book, but I have trouble giving it a high recommendation to others. You should at least know what you're getting yourself into before reading it.