I've been wanting to read this for foreverrrr. Sadly, it's a bit disappointing.

The writing reads like an internet article (no surprise tbh after knowing the author’s job), the games being told in the book are not all interesting and in hindsight some are already irrelevant today, the storylines are a bit similar from one another, and it's just too plain.

Furthermore, the author also seems to supports crunch culture? He writes a lot justification of the phenomenon in the games industry.

I also expected more behind the scene stories would be told but all of them are still pretty normative and things you would know from interviews.

It's not a bad read if you like games, especially if you know all the games in the book. But, I only know several and for the games I haven't heard it wasn't interesting at all.

This books gives you an incredible inside look on the creation of 10 games, from indies such as Stardew Valley to AAA hits like Uncharted 4, and even one unfinished project, Star Wars 1313. You never hear about behind the scenes in game development, but this book opens the door and gives you the full view for every game, and each game development has its own unique hurdles and circumstances making each one vastly different than the last. After reading this book you will never call game developers lazy. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves games, and especially anyone interested in game development.

So after DNF'ing Jasad Heir, I felt like I needed a win. More importantly, I felt like I needed something super low stakes. Like I didn't want to have to sit and learn magic systems or pay attention to crazy convoluted back stories.

So I went with this! It's been on my list for a very long time, and I started reading it once. But I couldn't get over how much I didn't like the author (sorry, I just don't vibe right with him). I listened to the audiobook though and that was much much easier to get through.

Despite how I feel about Jason, There's so much awesome here, it cannot be denied. So many great stories that made me want to stop everything I was doing and just start playing whatever game it was they were talking about. Uncharted 4, Stardew Valley, and Destiny Chapters were all hard hitting for me. They really made me appreciate the art of making games and what it takes to get something in our hands. If you're a gamer and you have any interest in what happens during the development process, you need to read this book.

Another really cool chapter was Star Wars 1313. There was so much to unpack there it really makes you wonder. I won't get into great detail but there were so many concepts and ideas being thrown around back in 2010ish, that when you look at the state of Star Wars today in 2023, you'll see SO MAHY similarities between them. It was really cool to listen to.

This was the perfect book to pick up and get through super quick. It made me feel accomplished and now I can go into October and spooky reads with confidence.

One of the best books that I've read this year (so far).