I highly recommend both Wolfenstein3D and Doom black books, from Fabien Sanglard, which are very technical and describe really well a ton of things around those games: how they have been developed, the tools they have been developed on / with, the context, ...
What I did not like about them was you could either buy a google book (only readable via a google app) or as a free but bitmapped Pdf, so bloated that it used to crash my iPad. I did not mind paying, but would like to get some more flexible format.
Their current Google Book is listed as DRM free[0]. Is that still restricted to only be downloadable in the Google app, or does that mean I could buy it and just download from the Google Play website itself as an EPUB?
Appreciate the suggestions in this thread. Adding recommendations for Blake Harris's "Console Wars" on 90s Sega vs. Nintendo competition, and Jason Schreier's "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels" for more of the development angle. It looks like he has a new book out just last week, "Press Reset" -- seems to be on studios/projects that shut down and the aftermath. Adding that one to my reading list.
For the link to Boss Fight books: FYI the selector defaults to paperback; ebooks are a very reasonable $5 if anyone prefers digital. They're that price at Amazon for Kindle, too. But IIRC and based on reviews out there, they vary quite a bit in style and quality. Supposedly the Spelunky one is great and written by the creator himself. I bounced off the series because one book was mostly personal anecdotes from the author, a random person who just liked the game, rather than anything about the topic you wouldn't get from playing it or even reading wikipedia. Some of the books do have more research and interviews.
Right, Boss Fight books are a mixed bag IMO but I suggest to anyone, especially HN, to read Spelunky. It's a well balanced account straight from the Spelunky dev himself, Derek Yu. Only con about it is it's so short!
Console Wars has some interesting reporting in it, but it's otherwise a terrible book. Absolutely filled with cliches, invented dialogue and business speak. It's also very clear that this book emerged from getting access to Sega of America chief Tom Kalinske and cannot solve the problem of getting anything meaningful out of Nintendo.
And perhaps unintentionally the Nintendo folks come out looking cool, authentic and passionate about making great games while the Sega folks seem like a bunch of cargo cult marketers who happen to be trying to sell games.
While I enjoyed what I've read of the series so far, I think it's a valid criticism that some books read more like a love letter from a fan than a history or notes from the developers.
If you're considering reading some of these but are specifically interested in the developer's point of view, I suggest reading some reviews and/or a bit about the [author] so you know what you're getting into.
For example: I liked the ZZT book very much, but that may be because I was briefly involved in the ZZT community in the early 2000s; it feels good to have a part of my history written down. If you've just read the Spelunky book (written by the developer Derek Yu) and are hoping the ZZT book is something similar from Tim Sweeney, you [may] be disappointed.
I had no connection to the ZZT community, and I loved the ZZT book. I think it captures very well the feeling of being a sort of outcast and trying to express oneself through art. I always remember the bit about being excited about a project and then waking up to the next day and feeling just so... inadequate to the task.
I was hyped going into it and it opened strong, but then it devolves into being a bunch of clips of Tom Kalinske & friends talking smack about a dead Japanese guy (head of Sega Japan) with no one to speak on the dead guy's behalf.
It felt super dishonest and one-sided, less a documentary than a PR piece to rehabilitate Kalinske's reputation, to the detriment of everyone at Sega Japan.
It only covers the good things SOA did and only the bad things SOJ supposedly did, and none of the opposite.
Small correction: Hayao Nakayama, the long-time president of Sega Enterprises who is made out to be incompetent in Console Wars, is still alive.
He, along with Sega co-founder David Rosen, were interviewed in the excellent 2014 book Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works, and their accounts don't really go along with Kalinske's. Rosen flat out rejects the (absurd) idea that the Japanese parent company was trying to sabotage Kalinske (a claim Kalinske has made many times in recent years). Rosen says Kalinske just had a hard time understanding why the Japanese side had to make the decisions they did.
As someone who is currently writing a book tangentially related to the Japanese history of Sega (plug: https://rasterscroll.com/product/legends/ ), I feel the need to say that Console Wars (however entertaining it might be) is not very accurate.
For one, it omits what I consider to be one of the biggest factors in Sega's decision-making from 1993 on--the massive drop in revenue that occurred in the U.S. and European markets. I've written about this recently with some interesting data on export revenues:
Wow, thank you for the correction, the movie made it sound like he was gone.
The ending to the console wars movie was basically "Sega failed, Nintendo was runner up, and Sony won", but didn't cover the almost-made-it Dreamcast comeback -- best selling launch of all time at that point. They almost made it, and it fixed pretty much everything the Saturn did wrong.
Hey by the way, your book looks cool, reminds me of "The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers" by John Szczepaniak
I've read his Karateka journal, but not that one yet. It wasn't super technical for the most part, at least not that I can remember, but it did give across the vibe of 'regular guy getting to do some cool things and find some success' and I found it extremely conversational, relatable, and inspiring. I do intend to read the Prince of Persia one at some point.
It probably also got me to start recording my own game design journal. I'm still kicking myself for not doing one earlier like I initially intended to while I got a pretty cool job working for a video game publisher as a producer (instead I wrote like, 5 or 6 journals total... that was 11 years ago now, so a lot of it has gotten fuzzy...maybe if I sit down and try my best to remember at some point).
But my game design journal (plus some personal stuff) journal, despite me still not having anything published during that time yet, is sitting at over 300,000 words over four years. I generated a ton of ideas and prototypes and consumed lots of lectures and playtested a bunch of other designer's games and had several 'almost' opportunities during that time, so there was plenty to talk about anyway.
Pandemic really stunted that habit, though, and I'm struggling to get back into the habit of it (taking a break from writing an entry right now, actually, only the third one this year so far :/).
Highly suggest it! I read the older version back in 2011 but I believe this newer one at the least contains all the material, maybe more. It's a entertaining and insightful ride of innovation.
Mechner has superb talent, especially back in his 20's, and I'm grateful he put out his notes for us to read.
I read it and enjoyed it. As a kid who grew up playing computer games in the late 80s and 90s, it was interesting to hear what was happening on the production side. Here are my notes from the book:
It's really good. I bought it after reading about Stripe Press (yes, the payments company publishes books). I also picked up The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop. I really enjoyed both books.
The quality of the Stripe Press books is outstanding, although the type size is a little small in the Dream Machine book.
> 2. Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book
I'd temper one's expectations on this one. It's a massive, unwieldy book, mostly speaking to old PC VGA graphics programming techniques, in pages taken verbatim from Abrash's previous Zen of Graphics Programming book.
It definitely isn't focused on a specific game, but it does go a bit into the BSP tree stuff used in Doom, if memory serves.
Maybe it's just because I had already read both his Zen of {Code Optimization, Graphics Programming} books, but I was rather disappointed upon acquiring and skimming the Black Book.
Fabien's deep dives are more interesting IMHO, if looking for stuff about tech in classic id games.
edit: BTW, if old [34]86/pentium-era PC optimization and VGA programming books is what you're after, the aforementioned Abrash books were goldmines at the time, and much more conveniently sized, physically speaking. I don't intend to throw shade on Abrash, it was just the Black Book that disappointed me, largely because of the high expectations set by his previous books. You can still find used copies of the Zen books readily on Amazon...
Abrash wrote about Quake in Dr. Dobb's Journal while he was working on it. These columns weren't in the earlier printings of the book but were added as Chapter 62 onwards in later printings (by which point it'd be fair to label the earliest chapters historical). PDFs at: https://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/graphics-programming-black-...
Yeah, the start is essentially Zen of Code Optimization, which was also a great book, but pretty much dated in 2021... but it's interesting to see how he thinks. The best thing to take away is not about picking the right instructions, but to use your brain to pick the right algorithms and use benchmarks
On the spirit of Masters of Doom, I recommend "It's behind you - The making of a computer Game" by Bob Pape.
The author explains how he made the R-Type conversion for the ZX Spectrum 48k and provides an interesting view of the "bedroom coders" and the early video game industry in the UK back in the 80s.
Another upvote for this. borrowed a copy and ... have never given it back (ed z - if you're reading this, that's who has it!)
It may only appeal to a certain niche audience, but it's so full of great details. It's a good balance between describing the technical challenges and then the hacks/tricks/wizardry that got around the sometimes insane limitations!
There is a small part about the departure of ID Software guys from Softdisk that is inaccurate and has been corrected by John Remoro himself when he spoke to the blogger who writes the famous CRPG Addict series (btw, completely out of topic but this blog is EXCELLENT if you want a COMPLETE view of pretty much every RPG out there since the 70s). The correction (as the blogger wrote) was a correction about a mistake he made in writing one of his earlier post about Dark Design, but I think it also corrects the claim made in Master of Doom.
You will need to scroll down to the second part, or just search "But since I was only able to get 1,200 words out of Goodcode's Cavern" on the page. To simplify things I'm pasting the paragraphs:
>I had consulted several sources to assemble that paragraph, including one that purported to have interviewed both Carmack and Romero in detail, and I was pretty confident in what I had. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when John Romero (who I didn't even know was aware of my blog) invited me to participate in a podcast interview of Stuart Smith. (We're recording in mid-September; I'll let you know when it's out.) I took the opportunity to run the paragraph by him and found out that almost everything I'd written was wrong. To wit:
- I was a year late; 1990 was the year most of this happened. Romero worked at Softdisk prior to Carmack and was actually the one who hired Carmack, not because of Dark Designs but because of a tennis game plus his obvious facility with programming.
- Romero and Carmack loved working at Softdisk and only left because it was the wrong sort of publisher to take advantage of the horizontal scrolling technology that the duo would use in Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM.
- It was actually the president of Softdisk, Al Vekovius, who suggested that Carmack, Romero, and Tom Hall start their own company. There were no lawsuits and no threats; Carmack and Romero kept working for Softdisk for a year to avoid leaving the company in a lurch.
- The reason Carmack and Romero are credited on so many Softdisk titles stretching into the mid-1990s is that those titles used technology and code that Carmack and Romero had created. They otherwise had no involvement in games like Cyberchess and Dangerous Dave Goes Nutz!
I recommend They Create Worlds for a comprehensive view of the early industry. Great insights into the causes of the twin crashes of consoles and arcades in the early 80's
I love the O'Reily design cues here, particularly the vague cover art and uniform cover elements. Had I not known this was a website, I probably would have killed to have a book titled "Super Mario Bros 3" with a racoon on the cover, but now I can just spend $15.
Reverse Design: Diablo II is an interesting book about what makes Diablo 2 so addictive and nice to play. It is a relatively short book (less than 150 pages), where author starts with the way difficulty is set-up (with exaple of Galaxian, where afte4 ewch increase there is a moment of decrease and stability). Then author looks why the game is a "feel good" game - the character becomes better and better. Enemies get better too, but not so fast.
There is also a nice chapter about the different types of randomness in the game: used to generate loot. As far as I remmember he also briefly mentions the "5 out of 10" quest system used in Diablo 1. What is really simple but good for replayability.
For those interested in Blizzard/Blizzard North/Diablo 2 history you can also check the 2nd book called Stay awhile and listen: heaven, hell and secret cow levels. Author goes more into what wenr wrong during Diablo 2 development (and obviously what went good). The 1st book is about Diablo 1 and is much weaker: it is mlstly quotes "we made a great game". The second book repeats a lot of info from first and focuses more on why Blizzard North fell.
I was checking the description of the books and I can't resist rolling my eyes at the idea that KOTOR offered" complex morality choices". I mean the game follows the binary morality system from Star Wars with its Light/Dark sides, which were translated in-game as being a nice guy or a jerk.
I see a lot of comments about other book series but not many about the specific bossfightbooks ones. Has anyone read any of them other than the Spelunky one?
I read the Spelunky one and enjoyed it, and grabbed the Baldur's Gate II one because I was under the mistaken impression that all these books were by developers or people otherwise involved in the game's creation, and they'd be war stories or other interesting insights. It wasn't, it's just some guy (he's written a D&D novel but not related to BG in any way) writing general stuff about the game - nothing really in any depth - and a whole lot of stuff about himself. Not at all what I was looking for (my fault, should've read the blurb).
Some of the other books seem to have interviews with creators or serious research done - are these good?
Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings by Ken Williams is another interesting one. It's more focused on the business side of the early game industry (especially the end of Sierra, and the author's side of the story relating to all the shenanigans involved), but it's a quick, interesting read. Probably people who weren't around in the 90s have forgotten how huge Sierra was in PC gaming.
I Am Error was excellent, as was Racing the Beam by Montfort and Bogost. That's from the same "platform studies" series as the Altice book, but focused on the technical and social development of the Atari 2600.
I read Spelunky book from this series and found it extremely well written and very insightful in areas of game design. I've actually play the game after I've read the book.
I, unfortunately, did not. It felt very mechanical. Like Derek agreed to write the book, and then just kinda... wrote it. It's very dry, matter of fact. It was clear that it was written after the fact by someone who is not a masterful wordsmith. I dont want to take anything away from Derek, or Spelunky, or Boss Fight Books, but I think that having a ghost writer would have helped the Spelunky book.
In addition to the books mentioned here, I would also suggest Atari Inc. Business is Fun which is a super well researched book about the early days of Atari. They were going to write a second one but one of the coauthors died last year so I don't know if work continues on it or not.
John Staats's diary on the development of World of Warcraft. A great book on game development culture, the craft of creating a truly 'massive' game, and, ultimately, a sad story of crunch-time and burnout.
Wolfenstein 3D Black Book: https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/
Doom Black Book: https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/