Tag Archives: Book

30 May, 2024

Masters of Doom

Wolfenstein 3D was one of the first games I have ever played. Another one that was installed on the PC I had access to was Doom II. Both of them shareware – I had no idea what that meant back then, and I didn’t care. I just had tons of fun, and I wanted more. Well, I did!

It’s now almost 30 years later and I’m still waiting for id software games. I still hope Carmack will do something cool to surprise us. I still don’t care that much for Romero. I haven’t read any biographies of either of them, until recently. Friend of mine recommended me a book: Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner, originally released in 2003.

The book itself is a must-read for any gaming enthusiast. It’s well written, clear and fun to read. I just wish it had more technical details, but that’s the price for making the book easy to approach for anyone. Anyway, I don’t want to write about the book, just give it a read, it’s worth it.

I wanted to focus on the big picture of Two John’s career. Both of them came from different backgrounds, and both of them loved games and making them. It’s incredible how different their approaches were. And it’s stunning how their careers developed.

Now, was their story unique? No, not at all. I was mind boggled how similar it was to what I observed for the past decade. There’s no use getting into details, but there’s one observation I want to share and remember: never stop pursuing your goals, but stay sane. Things do change and you have to keep up with them. No one is going to care about you if you don’t.

23 April, 2023

Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook

My book Pile of Shame became my tormentor. Recently I’m catching up with it just to get some closure. Most recent book I’ve read was waiting for over 10 years. Shame! I always had something better to read…

Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook by Sarath Lakshman is exactly what the title says. The book presents quite a few useful recipes to common problems. On top of that we’ll find some bash scripting basics and introduction to other common concepts.

I didn’t find much new stuff in it, but that was to be expected. Sadly, the way the book was written is pretty frustrating. One third of it are useless, repetitive descriptions and introductions. When you get over it, it might be a pretty decent read.

Here are some highlights of commands I’m not using often enough, for my own reference:

  • xargs
  • diff/patch
  • tree
  • grep (xD)
  • got to start using curl instead of wget
  • netstat
  • time
  • watch

11 March, 2023

Nonviolent communication

Another read recommended in Unknown Worlds Slack. You’ll probably hear that “everyone should read it”. I’m sure that magical solutions do not exist, but it turned out that Marshall Rosenberg’s book is very close to that.

NVC is a process that enables empathic collaboration. It can be used to handle very complex issues, like mediation. I’d call it a special language that requires a lot of practice, time and consciousness. Sadly, I’m not very good at keeping language skills when not using them on a daily basis (sobs in German). I’ll probably have to re-read the book to make some good notes about the most important stuff.

The most important takeaway for me was not the communication with others, but… internal dialogue. I think of myself as a kind person, so I didn’t have to work on the basics. Thanks to NVC I now remember about one thing when talking to others – their point of view. That changes a lot. It’s easier to understand the reasoning and wording of other people.

Back to the internal dialogue thing! The book showed me something that I never considered – I’m too hard on myself. I was raised in a way that makes my life hard sometimes, and the book helped me realize that. I’ve read it a few months back, and now I’m sure I have to revisit it soon…

5 March, 2023

Think like a game designer

Charlie Cleveland recommended this read to the UW team. I wasn’t ever interested in game design, so I decided to finally change that and check out the book. Justin Gary’s work has a subtitle “the step-by-step guide to unlocking your creative potential”. I never had any great game ideas, so I doubted that.

After reading it I had to admit that I was surprised. Gary’s systematic apporach to design seems like a no-nonsense approach that could produce game ideas that could be easily verified. I wish I had time to verify that, haha.

Contents, for future reference:

Part I Understanding Design 19
Chapter 1 Learning Fundamentals 21
Chapter 2 Getting Started 25
Chapter 3 Overcoming Obstacles 35

Part II Learning the Core Design Loop 39
Chapter 4 The Steps of the Core Design Loop 41
Chapter 5 Inspiring 43
Chapter 6 Framing 53
Chapter 7 Brainstorming 59
Chapter 8 Prototyping 69
Chapter 9 Testing 77
Chapter 10 Iterating 85

Part III Refining Your Designs 91
Chapter 11 The Phases of Design 93
Chapter 12 Engine Design 101
Chapter 13 Engine Development 113
Chapter 14 Component Design 119
Chapter 15 Component Development 125
Chapter 16 Polish 131

Part IV Building Great Games 143
Chapter 17 What Makes Games Great? 145
Chapter 18 Elegance 147
Chapter 19 Excitement 155
Chapter 20 Depth 161
Chapter 21 Motivation 169
Chapter 22 Engagement 177

Part V Making Money 185
Chapter 23 Monetizing Games 187
Chapter 24 How to Be a Professional Game Designer 193
Chapter 25 How Can I Get My Game Published? 197
Chapter 26 Game Business Models 203
Chapter 27 How to Make Games That Last 211
A Final Note: Living the Lessons 217