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GAMEDEV: 10 Steps to Making Your First Game Successful Review

Leave a Comment / Book Review / By William M Coyne, PharmD, MBA / September 29, 2021

Brief synopsis of GAMEDEV: 10 Steps

GAMEDEV: 10 Steps is two books in one. First, it’s a general high level guide for creating and publishing a game on platforms like Steam. Second, it’s a story about a young man that overcame tremendous adversity to achieve success in several different aspects of life. You’ll be inspired and you’ll very likely learn several things about the game development journey along the way.

Length

This book is 256 pages in length. There are no appendices or indices.

Target audience

The target audience of GAMEDEV: 10 Steps is an aspiring game developer interested in publishing their first commercially viable game. In general the author is coming from a background in which games are created with engines like Unity 3D and Unreal Engine. The primary platforms talked about in depth are Steam and the Epic Games Store, but there is also some coverage of other minor portals.

Relevance to game development

The relevance of this book to game development is very high for me because it’s exactly the direction I want to go in myself. That is, I want to create a commercial game for Steam using Unity 3D. I’d like to work solo for as much of the project as I possibly can and I’m primarily interested in the PC market.

How GAMEDEV: 10 Steps should be read

Because it’s not highly technical in nature this book should be read linearly like any other novel. I would not recommend skipping around.

Best features

The author acts as a role model for the reader; he overcame many substantial struggles throughout his life. It left me feeling inspired and that success is possible for me too if I continue to work hard. What stood out to me, by far, was the author’s suggestion to go big with your first game project. That is, make the game you really want, within reason of course. This is in sharp contrast to the advice I typically hear which is almost always centered around completing a bunch of small projects first. After giving this some thought I tend to agree with Wlad; the smaller projects may not be interesting enough to keep you motivated; making your dream game definitely will. Finally, each section has a bullet-point summary to reinforce the main takeaways. These will come in handy if you ever want to quickly reference a specific topic in the future. As stated in a different section, there is no index.

What I wish was different

This was genuinely a good read. I have no significant concerns. The author did a great job.

Writing quality

I was impressed with the writing in GAMEDEV: 10 Steps and I am not pulling any punches because English is the author’s third language either. I was turning pages quickly. I actually stopped reading 2 other books I was working on at the same time so I could focus on this one. As someone with a fair amount of industry knowledge I still learned plenty of new things. The entire book explains the game development process by telling the story of the author’s own successful game, DARQ. The author is essentially the underdog we all love to root for; he overcame all odds to become successful.

Code quality in GAMEDEV: 10 Steps

This book makes several suggestions regarding what types of features should be implemented in your game, but it’s purely descriptive in nature. There is no code, but the suggestions are generally helpful and will benefit a beginner that has yet to complete a full-featured commercial game.

Author’s attitude

The author is a hero in his own story, an underdog that overcomes impossible challenges. The book is filled with words of encouragement and hope. You’ll no doubt walk away from this one feeling good, feeling confident.

Should you buy Start Your Video Game Career?

I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone just starting out their game development journey. Not only will you gain some time-saving insight into the development and publication process, but you’ll also get to enjoy the author’s own tumultuous journey to success. It’s not often that you get to listen to a story and learn some useful semi-technical knowledge at the same time. You should take advantage of the opportunity.