Swords and Circuitry

Neal and Jana Hallford

A word to prospective buyers: Swords and Circuitry is not a book about coding games. If that's what you're looking for, Prima has a number of other titles you can go to. This one's about designing games, and there's nary a line of code to be found.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, this book does have a lot to offer both for those who plan to specialize in game design and those who are running (or trying to run) one-man shops. The Hallfords offer a good deal of advice regarding the whole process of game design, from defining what it is (and having others interviewed by Neal Hallford do so as well) to details of design documents, proposals, etc. The benefits for the aspiring game designer are obvious; to the one-man shop, reading this may help clarify some things that will help when programming time comes, or shed a different light on things that may not have been thought of in quite that way. Definitely worth checking out, but know what you're getting.