Blood, sweat, and pixels
Examines the development process of such marquee video games as Uncharted 4, Halo Wars, and Destiny, describing the challenges and demands of design.
Stats for nerds
28recommend
50mentions
42people
2017–2026years
60% recommend36% neutral4% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- This year I've been diving into Game dev books and Harry Potter fan fiction. There's a lot of great reads out there. I assume having an entire world built for you removes a lot of the heavy lifting (as a writer).
GameDev:
- The Masters of Doom
- The Doom Guy
- Play Nice
- Press Reset
- Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
- Console Wars
- Ask Iwata
- Embed with Games
HP Fanfic:
- All The Young Dudes (by MsKingBean89) [student life of the Marauders]
- Grey Space (by noaacat) [Pre Hogwarts. Focuses on parental abuse. One scene I'll never forget (paraphrasing) is when another student at school notices Harry's bruises, slides up her sleeve, and implies she slipped too]
- Just started the Glasslight series (noaacat).
I also reread the entire Harry Potter series, and revisited a handful of Redwall books. I find it interesting how I loved RW as a kid/teen, was bored out of my mind with it in my 20s, and now I love it again.
- Yes. The two books by Schreier: "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels", and the sequel, "Press Reset". Both are worth reading, and better than this article.
The article author touches on the gamification of work, but doesn't get very far with it. Games as a "work simulator", or "grinding games", have been around for years, but they're less popular than they used to be. There are many of them, though, from "Modern Farming" to "Lawnmower Simulator".
Yes, there really is a lawnmower simulator game. It's a total grind. You work for a lawn-mowing business. You have to walk the lawn before mowing and pick up rocks, to avoid damaging the mower. Then you mow, not missing any spots or damaging flowerbeds. Then you get paid. Then you may be able to buy a better mower.[1]
Now get back to work.
- Game developer here. Read Zevin's book. As expected, some parts are spot on, some are wildly off, but within the industry there is also a wide range of experiences.
If you want to learn more about actual game development stories, I recommend Blood, Sweat, and Pixels:
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/blood-sweat-and-pixel...
- Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made, by Jason Schreier
Not particularly deep, but a pretty good read about more modern AAA games and crunch in the industry.
- Hello everyone!
I really enjoyed reading Androids and the other similar books below. I found it fascinating to learn the stories behind the technology I use everyday. I've been having a hard time finding books similar to it. Does any know of any other books, articles, or whatever that go into the history of operating system, video games, programming languages, or other parts of the tech industry?
Books I've Read:
* Androids: The Team that Built the Android Operating by Chet Haase
* Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier
* Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushne
* Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
* Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different: A Biography by Karen Blumenthal
- I highly recommend reading "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made". It does a deep dive into the development histories of a bunch of different games. Some of them turned out to be wildly successful. Some not so much. Stardew Valley is one of the games it covers, going through all the ups and downs in its single-handed five year (!) development cycle.
