Game Design and Development: Code, Psychology and Analytics (Paperback)

Very good, with a few caveats. The core material is strong.

I bought this on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a forum thread, and I am glad I did. The writing is direct and does not waste space on filler, which I value in a technical book. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. The author is unusually honest about where the simplifications break down, which I appreciated. A good addition to a technical library, as long as you know what you are buying.

Outstanding. I kept finding reasons to come back to it.

I read this over a couple of weekends alongside a small side project, which turned out to be the ideal way to approach it. I appreciated the honesty about what the book does not cover — it saved me from expecting things that were not there. I particularly liked the way the author builds up from simple cases before introducing the harder material. The author clearly knows the subject deeply and has thought hard about how to teach it. An easy five stars from me. I look forward to whatever the author writes next.