This books focuses on the history of videogames in Britain, and more specifically on the best-known videogames in history that originates from Britain: Tomb Raider, Grand Theft, Auto, Elite, MUD, Populous, Lemmings, Carmageddon, Runescape, EarthWormJim, etc. This book also details the history of some famous english computers, such as Sinclair's ZX family, the Amstrad computer line, the BBC Micro and its legacy, that includes the ARM processors nowadays embedded in almost any smartphone. Extremel
[...]
Keywords : history, videogames, britain, grand theft auto, tomb raider, elite, populous, mud
An introductory book to the universe of Serious Games, written by an educator working with them on a daily basis in an "after-school" context. The book starts by defining Serious Games and their history, with many examples. The author then explores "why?" Serious Games, again backed by a lot of case studies. The last part of the book gathers a lot of references and resources on the topic, from tools and advices to design your own Serious Games to a list of events and schools
[...]
Keywords : serious games, introduction, history, events, schools
Games History is a series of magazines in a book-like format (similar to Pix'n Love and IG), with 200 pages dedicated to a defined genre of video games. This second issue is focused on the history of 2D versus fighting games. The book thus retrace the history of popular series such as Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Guilty Gear, Mortal Kombat, Fatal Fury, Darkstalkers, Samurai Shodown, Killer Instinct, alongside with some less known titles like Arcana Hearts or Battle Fantasia. While it's not
[...]
Keywords : history, versus fighting, street fighter, mortal kombat, king of fighters, guilty gear, ken bogard
The autobiography of Ralph Baer, the inventor of home video game consoles. Released in 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey is one of the starting points of the history of video games. First of all, it's the first video console solely dedicated to games. Moreover, one of its titles, Ping-Pong, was a direct source of inspiration for Atari to create Pong. Through a book featuring many pictures, Ralph Baer details us the process he followed to invent this first console ever. As a natural-born engineer,
[...]
Keywords : ralph baer, magnavox odyssey, first video game, simon, lawsuit, biography
This book details the captivating story of the scandalous game series "Grand Theft Auto". Over 300 pages, the author tells us about the most epic moments of this saga: humble beginnings as a small arcade game made in Scotland by DMA Design; hiring Max Clifford to use media scandal as a marketing campaign; the hijacking of the series leadership by the Houser brothers and their studio Rockstar during the creation of GTA III; the first legal actions against the game series and the ri
[...]
Keywords : grand theft auto, history, dma design, rockstar, jack thompson, sam houser, david jones, esrb
Alongside with "The Ultimate History of Videogames" and "La Saga des Jeux vidéo", here is without a doubt the third must-read book for anyone who want to have a global view on the history of videogames. The authors starts from the early games up to nowadays, and tells the story of the most important games and machines thanks to interviews with their creators. The added value of this book compared to the two previous ones is the fact that, in addition to tackling
[...]
Keywords : history, united kindgom, france, europe
The french written reference about the history of videogames. This must-have book has know five different editions between 1997 and 2012. It details the story of many famous videogames thanks to interviews with their designers: Pong, Tomb Raider, Tetris, Doom, Myst, Sim City, etc. The book also have a background story with the life of Philippe Ulrich, famous french game designer and founder of Cryo, who have lived through all the stages of the videogames history. A very interesting read wi
[...]
Keywords : history, france, world of warcraft
The "deck of lenses" isn't a book, but a set of 100 cards that complete the book "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses", by the same author. Each card represents one of the "lens" invented by Jesse Schell. A "lens" is a kind of "viewing angle" allowing the game designer to focus on a particular aspect of his game. These "lenses" are composed by a series of questions. For example, the "lens of judgement" makes the game d
[...]
Keywords : jesse schell, game design tool, cards, lens
This tiny 88 pages book attempts to provide a introduction to the world of video games to people who doesn't know anything about them. It begins with a quick summary of the history of video games, followed by a detailed presentation of the main games genres. It then presents the main steps of the creation process of a video games, and ends with leads for their future. The book is written in a way that makes each topic covered over two pages only: video games from the 70's, the 80's, the 90's, ac
[...]
Keywords : video games, introduction, history, genres, design
A 700 pages introductory bible to the many concepts of Game Design. This book is an updated and revised edition of "Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design", and it's still divided in two parts. The first one is explaining the fundamental concepts of video game design: game design process, game mechanics, balancing, storytelling, characters, level design, etc. The second part of the book presents the main video game genres (action, adventure, simulation, sports, etc.) and their
[...]
Keywords : game design, introduction, genre, beginner