Blood, Sweat and Pixels

This is something new. My first and hopefully many book reviews.

Title: Blood, Sweat and Pixels - The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories behind how Video Games are made.
Author: Jason Schreier (Famously a reporter for kotaku.com)
Pages: 320 (620 on the iphone)
Chapters: 10



What is it about:
Video game development has always been a secretive process (why? I have no idea. Probably due to they don't want their tech being used by other parties. Maybe they just don't want to be scrutinize by everyone on why the game is taken so long). This book is here to tell what goes behind the scene of some most popular video games in the market now.

There are 10 chapters in the book:

1. Pillars of Eternity (8)
2. Uncharted 4 (2)
3. Stardew Valley (3)
4. Diablo III (10)
5. Halo Wars (9)
6. Dragon Age: Inquisition (6)
7. Shovel Knight (4)
8. Destiny (7)
9. The Witcher 3 (5)
10. Star Wars 1313 (1)

The only game I've played out of this 10 chapters is only Uncharted 4 which for me is a great read since you can relate where the game developers had issues designing the game.  I've rank the chapters from great to ok. By far the story of Star Wars 1313 is an amazing tale on which a game that everyone put their blood, sweat and tears just died at the 11th hour. This read felt like I was reading a story that go either way (well we do know what happen to this game in the end). To tell the truth I love a story about developers who are underdogs and don't have any funding from their main company to develop a game. It shows that the struggle is real. Games like Diablo III is already a great game that requires more polish so the story is good but not that great.

Don't get me wrong, each chapter there are great moments to be had and you will appreciate how hard is it to design something for us to enjoy for 10-20 hours and never touch it ever again (makes you wonder right... you take years to work on something only to have it either loved or hated by the community)

I have a feeling that there is going to be a sequel to this book and I hope that a couple of game will be covered

1. Any Metal Gear Solid game (Anything from Kojima)
2. Anything from a Japanese publisher
3. Nintendo (they are a very secretive bunch)

I would definitely recommend this book to be read by anybody who loves games. Non gamers will probably won't enjoy this book as much since there are lot of game development talk here.

Should you read this: Yes, great read. ended to soon