Character Development And Storytelling For Games 2nd Edition

This book was good enough to get me through a rough class, but I have since learned much more than what this book taught. Still, if you're looking for a place to start building characters and stories, this book is a great way to learn the basics.

Sheldon wastes much too much time name dropping examples and flaunting his own credits instead of discussing the subject matter and providing tangible examples. The book is much too informal with a style more suited for a personal blog than an informative book let alone one used as a textbook in a related class."In addition, I am always concerned when the player's avatar is a famous detective. Whether Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, much of the pleasure the reader or film-goer derives, is watching how the brilliant sleuth sculpts all the clues into a big finger pointing directly at the culprit. How much less fun it is to know exactly what the detective knows as soon as he or she knows it. This is why, forced to use Poirot in The ABC Murders, I also allowed players to play support investigative characters."This is but one of many navel gazing examples Sheldon indulges in. I imagine the author aims to provide the reader a peek into his process when writing, but such passages only preclude the reader from considering what is to be the topic of discussion. Any reader who has a modicum of experience playing video games will be well acquainted with topics such as dialogue trees, NPCs, and so forth. The real highlights are the few excerpts from actual video game developers and writers, but those are hardly worth the price of admission.

It takes way too much time for the author to actually say anything. There's a lot of really pretentious "What is Art?" nonsense and masturbatory self-reflection, and not enough actually talking about the process of designing characters and stories. Do not buy this book unless you absolutely need it for a class.