With increasingly sophisticated video games being consumed by an enthusiastic and expanding audience, the pressure is on game developers like never before to deliver exciting stories and engaging characters. With Video Game Storytelling, game writer and producer Evan Skolnick provides a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow guide to storytelling basics and how they can be applied at every stage of the development process - by all members of the team.

The book guides you through a step-by-step process of making a commercial game. It teaches you how to learn all the necessary skills and covers various aspects of game development: mindset, preproduction, funding, business, law, development, marketing, PR, publishing, distribution, as well as pre-launch, launch, and post-launch strategies.

Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes listeners on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius.

Indie Game Publishing is the essential guide for indie game developers seeking to put their game into the hands of players. Whether you decide to self-publish or find a publisher to partner with, this useful guide will take you through each step of the process and thoroughly prepare you for success. This revised edition has been redesigned and tailored specially for the audiobook listener. Hear from experienced developers and expert publishers how they successfully released their games.

The Secret Science of Games is an accessible and entertaining guide to the hidden role of science in making games more fun. User experience (UX) research is a vital part of the story of how video games have become a cultural juggernaut, but game developers generally don’t speak publicly about how data shapes game design and game development.

Good games don’t emerge out of thin air. Game design is a craft, and as in any other craft, there are skills and knowledge, acquired through study and practice, that accelerate progress toward better games. You Said This Would Be Fun explores these skills, explaining how great games exhibit qualities that designers of all experience levels can strive to emulate.

Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world's most popular video games, including Sid Meier's Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier's Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry.

In this groundbreaking audiobook, Amy Jo Kim lays out a step-by-step system for crafting products that people love...and keep loving. The secret? Develop “impossible to put down” products by using techniques that the fast-moving games industry employs when making games that glue millions of players to their screens.

Do you have a board game idea but can't get it out of your head? Use my "four I's" framework and you'll get your game to the table and quickly discover if it will be the next Cards Against Humanity (hint: good!) or the next Trump: The Game (hint: not so good!).

Doom Guy: Life in First Person is the long-awaited autobiography of gaming’s original rock star and the cocreator of DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein—some of the most recognizable and important titles in video game history. Credited with the invention of the first-person shooter, a genre that continues to dominate the market today, he is gaming royalty. Told in remarkable detail, a byproduct of his hyperthymesia, Romero recounts his storied career.

The new era of gamification and human-focused design optimizes for motivation and engagement over traditional function-focused design. Within the industry, studies on game mechanics and behavioral psychology have become proliferate. However, few people understand how to merge the two fields into experience designs that reliably increases business metrics and generates a return on investment.

With all the whiz, bang, pop, and shimmer of a glowing arcade, volume 1 of The Ultimate History of Video Games reveals everything you ever wanted to know and more about the unforgettable games that changed the world, the visionaries who made them, and the fanatics who played them. Starting in arcades then moving to televisions and handheld devices, the video game invasion has entranced kids and the young at heart for nearly fifty years. And gaming historian Steven L. Kent has been there to record the craze from the very beginning.

Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to produce the most notoriously successful game franchises in history - Doom and Quake - until the games they made tore them apart. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry.

Video games are dominating the planet. In 2020, they brought in $180 billion dollars globally—nearly $34 billion in the United States alone. So who are the brilliant designers who create these stunning virtual worlds? Cliff Bleszinski—or CliffyB as he is known to gamers—is one of the few who’ve reached mythical, rock-star status. In Control Freak, he gives an unvarnished, all-access tour of the business.

Writing advice tends to be full of "rules" and "tips" which are either too broad to be helpful or outright wrong. In On Writing and Worldbuilding, we will discuss specific and applicable ideas to consider, from effective methods of delivering exposition and foreshadowing, to how communication, commerce, and control play into the fall of an empire.

It isn't enough to just do your job anymore. In order to thrive in today's marketplace, all of us, regardless of our role, have to be ready to generate brilliant ideas on demand. Business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to establish effective practices that unleash your creative potential. Born out of his consultancy and his popular podcast, Henry has created a practical method for discovering your personal creative rhythm.

Moments of Impact is an audiobook on a mission: to eradicate time-sucking, energy-depleting workshops and meetings. In our fast-changing world, organizations have important challenges and opportunities to address - and no time to waste. Moments of Impact delivers the single most useful resource for managers and leaders who need better strategic conversation - now - to shape the future of their organizations.

Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory but made accessible through numerous real-world examples - ready for immediate application to your next graph or presentation.

Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie educate listeners on one of the hottest trends in business development: "design thinking", or the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for maximal business growth. Jeanne Liedtka's recent book, The Catalyst: How YOU Can Lead Extraordinary Growth, was named a Top Innovation and Design Thinking Book by Business Week. Tim Ogilvie has been hailed as a visionary for his pioneering contributions to service innovation, business model innovation, and customer experience design.

You love Dungeons and Dragons. As an experienced dungeon master, you've run dozens, if not hundreds of games. You put a lot of work into making your games great. What if there's another way to look at how you prepare your game? What if it turned out you could spend less time and less energy and have a better game as a result? It's time to unleash the Lazy Dungeon Master.

Exactly Where to Start is a playbook for everyone with a great idea, everyone with a goal in mind, and everyone with a specific destination but no journey. This book coaches you through the journey with precise, actionable steps that help you take that all-important first leap and keep the momentum going. Discard the distractions, break through the overwhelm, and get going for real with this real-world blueprint for turning your vision into reality.

Most of us live with the stubborn idea that we'll always have tomorrow to do our most important and valuable work. We fill our days with frantic activity, bouncing from task to task, scrambling to make deadlines and chase the next promotion. But by the end of each day we're often left asking ourselves "did the work I do today really matter?" We feel the ticking of the clock, but we're stuck in first gear, unsure of the path forward and without a road map to guide us.

Jonathan Fields knows the risks - and potential power - of uncertainty. He gave up a six-figure income as a lawyer to make $12 an hour as a personal trainer. Then, married with a three-month old baby, he signed a lease to launch a yoga center in the heart of New York City...the day before 9/11.

You might've talked about innovation with your IT department or software development agency lately and the words "design thinking" were surely mentioned. So what is it? Just another piece of business jargon to add to your arsenal or a useful tool? Or maybe even an overestimated hype? Nowadays every organization or business runs into a myriad of problems as business models become increasingly more complex. Globalization and advances in communication and technology, all add up to creating unique opportunities but also new challenges that are not easy to solve applying the old tested methods.

Careers are not linear, predictable ladders any longer; they are fluid trajectories. No matter our age, life stage, bank account balance, or seniority, we are all being asked to navigate career changes much more frequently than in years past. The average employee tenure in America is just four to five years, and even those roles change dramatically within that time. Our economy now demands that we create businesses and careers based on creativity, growth, and impact. In this dynamic world of work, the only move that matters is your next one.

Too often we look back at the end of the week and are frustrated that we didn’t make progress on our soul-deep dreams and goals that seem to remain eternally out of reach. Start Finishing presents a 9-step method for success - including identifying your genius, building a success pack of supporters, navigating multiple projects, and overcoming the challenges that come with doing work that matters. Features contributions from Seth Godin, Susan Piver, Jonathan Fields, James Clear, and more.

The small-business guru behind Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine teaches listeners how to establish lasting commitment in their employees, customers, and businesses. Why are some companies able to generate committed, long-term customers while others struggle to stay afloat? Why do the employees of some organizations fully dedicate themselves while others punch the clock without enthusiasm?

What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, the story developers at Pixar films, and the Army Chief of Strategic Plans all have in common? Best-selling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas.

Powerful strategies for sales proficiency in ever-changing situations. When sales people are promoted, change jobs, or face new business environments, they inevitably need to learn new skills quickly. Their livelihoods depend on getting up to speed quickly; their bosses have no patience for delayed results

How can you come up with great ideas by yourself, or in the context of your team, and quickly determine which are worthy of investment? The simple metric of ideaflow determines success like no other. Ideaflow is a mindset, a way of approaching all your business problems, that multiplies your efforts and unleashes your full potential. Nurture ideaflow and watch your results transform.

The book guides you through a step-by-step process of making a commercial game. It teaches you how to learn all the necessary skills and covers various aspects of game development: mindset, preproduction, funding, business, law, development, marketing, PR, publishing, distribution, as well as pre-launch, launch, and post-launch strategies.

Good games don’t emerge out of thin air. Game design is a craft, and as in any other craft, there are skills and knowledge, acquired through study and practice, that accelerate progress toward better games. You Said This Would Be Fun explores these skills, explaining how great games exhibit qualities that designers of all experience levels can strive to emulate.

With increasingly sophisticated video games being consumed by an enthusiastic and expanding audience, the pressure is on game developers like never before to deliver exciting stories and engaging characters. With Video Game Storytelling, game writer and producer Evan Skolnick provides a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow guide to storytelling basics and how they can be applied at every stage of the development process - by all members of the team.

The Secret Science of Games is an accessible and entertaining guide to the hidden role of science in making games more fun. User experience (UX) research is a vital part of the story of how video games have become a cultural juggernaut, but game developers generally don’t speak publicly about how data shapes game design and game development.

In this groundbreaking audiobook, Amy Jo Kim lays out a step-by-step system for crafting products that people love...and keep loving. The secret? Develop “impossible to put down” products by using techniques that the fast-moving games industry employs when making games that glue millions of players to their screens.

Are you a beginner who’d like to know how to program video games? A.E Colonna is an avid gamer and a self-taught game developer who is ready to give you a smooth introduction to video game development. After nine weeks, you’re guaranteed to know the basic coding concepts; you’ll be ready to create your first game using C# and the unity engine.

Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes listeners on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius.

The new era of gamification and human-focused design optimizes for motivation and engagement over traditional function-focused design. Within the industry, studies on game mechanics and behavioral psychology have become proliferate. However, few people understand how to merge the two fields into experience designs that reliably increases business metrics and generates a return on investment.

How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself is a guide for anyone who wants to make their own video game. Listen to this book to learn how to locate the itch you're eager to scratch, how to pick a game engine to power your vision, and how to find the fun in your game. Most importantly, this book helps you guide your project to the finish line. Written from personal experience by a video game industry veteran and podcaster, it's packed with handmade drawings and charts

Take your games to the next level with advice from more than 60 of the best board game designers in the world. Game design is hard. We all need sound advice to guide our work and help us become better at the craft. In this book you'll find incredible wisdom and insight from the top designers in the industry today.