The game designers behind such hits as Angry Birds, Boom Beach, Cities: Skylines, Trials, Clash Royale, Max Payne have learned plenty of trial-and-error lessons while creating an amazing array of world class gaming success stories. All of them have one thing in common: Finland. Today Finland is recognized internationally as a power nation among game developers - punching well above its weight, when it comes to gaming successes. The capital Helsinki alone has over 50 game studios and more are popping up monthly. Game industry insiders Konsta Klemetti and Harro Grönberg decipher the secret sauce of Finnish game design by interviewing eleven award-winning, fearless designers from the cool North to talk about the best practices in engaging players and how they avoid the common pitfalls of game design. Their tips and ideas will come in handy for anyone looking to learn how to create video games for any platform. www.gamedesignerconfessions.com
Imagine a world with few security systems in place. No fences, no locks, no witnesses. A place where property of immense, yet incalculable and irreplaceable value, is laying around within easy reach of all persons, good and bad. No vaults, automatic door locks, or security cameras. A place where greed and easy profit tempt all. Ethical hunters and anglers can see it, more importantly they feel it. Clearly, many public administrators cannot.Imagine this place, guarded only by about 120 men and women in the state of Washington, armed only with inadequate and ever-changing laws to carry the entire conservation burden. Their task is enormous and success is elusive.This was my worldThese are my stories
Meet Johnny Anonymous. No, that’s not his real name. But he is a real, honest-to-goodness pro football player. A member of the League. A slave, if you will, to the NFL. For the millions of you out there who wouldn’t know what to do on Sundays if there wasn’t football, who can’t imagine life without the crunch of helmets ringing in your ears, or who look forward to the Super Bowl more than your birthday, Johnny Anonymous decided to tell his story. Written during the 2014–2015 season, this is a year in the life of the National Football League. This is a year in the life of a player—not a marquee name, but a guy on the roster—gutting it out through training camp up to the end of the season, wondering every minute if he’s going to get playing time or get cut. Do you want to know how players destroy their bodies and their colons to make weight? Do you wonder what kind of class and racial divides really exist in NFL locker rooms? Do you want to know what NFL players and teams really think about gay athletes or how the League is really dealing with crime and violence against women by its own players? Do you wonder about the psychological warfare between players and coaches on and off the field? About how much time players spend on Tinder or sexting when not on the field? About how star players degrade or humiliate second- and third-string players? What players do about the headaches and memory loss that appear after every single game? This book will tell you all of this and so much more. Johnny Anonymous holds nothing back in this whip-smart commentary that only an insider, and a current player, could bring. Part truth-telling personal narrative, part darkly funny exposé, NFL Confidential gives football fans a look into a world they’d give anything to see, and nonfans a wild ride through the strange, quirky, and sometimes disturbing realities of America’s favorite game. Here is a truly unaffiliated look at the business, guts, and glory of the game, all from the perspective of an underdog who surprises everyone—especially himself. JOHNNY ANONYMOUS is a four-year offensive lineman for the NFL. Under another pseudonym, he’s also a contributor for the comedy powerhouse Funny Or Die. You can pretty much break NFL players down into three categories. Twenty percent do it because they’re true believers. They’re smart enough to do something else if they wanted, and the money is nice and all, but really they just love football. They love it, they live it, they believe in it, it’s their creed. They would be nothing without it. Hell, they’d probably pay the League to play if they had to! These guys are obviously psychotic. Thirty percent of them do it just for the money. So they could do something else—sales, desk jockey, accountant, whatever—but they play football because the money is just so damn good. And it is good. And last of all, 49.99 percent play football because, frankly, it’s the only thing they know how to do. Even if they wanted to do something “normal,” they couldn’t. All they’ve ever done in their lives is play football—it was their way out, either of the hood or the deep woods country. They need football. If football didn’t exist, they’d be homeless, in a gang, or maybe in prison. Then there’s me. I’m part of my own little weird minority, that final 0.01 percent. We’re such a minority, we don’t even count as a category. We’re the professional football players who flat-out hate professional football.
This book is a must read for computer gamers and artists who enjoy classic cover art of some of their favorite games. The book is visually beautiful and showcases all the classic covers I painted between 1985 and 1994. It also describes what it was like getting the commissions and painting them. This is a fun read for any one interested in being an artist and wondering what it is like to create classic cover art for games and movies. Told candidly and with a sense of humor you can learn the nostalgic history behind these paintings and many of my other paintings not lost to the digital age.
In June 2010, Paul Laubach made the unfortunate decision to play all of the top 100 golf courses available to the public, according to Golf Magazine. Spread over 45 months, he managed to complete his goal despite numerous weather, course maintenance and other logistical issues...not to mention his own “senior moment.” The journey covered 87,814 air miles and another 17,051 by automobile. During the trek he suffered two frozen shoulders, a bad lower back, golfer's elbow (left), tennis elbow (right), three major sunburns, hundreds of mosquito bites, poison oak, plus numerous cuts and bruises chasing errant shots into the woods, desert and other prickly flora. None of this was as painful as the cost associated with losing 117 Pro V1s. A confirmed golf addict and cheapskate, he is now chronicling his adventures for his heirs (who will probably get nothing else, as he wasted the estate on this boondoggle).
In 1981 Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz founded Electronic Games magazine, the first magazine devoted entirely to the new generation of plugged-in entertainment from video and computer games to hand-helds, tabletop games, coin-ops and even state-of-the-art military and training simulators. Although the magazine only lasted just a few issues past its third birthday, it is still regarded as one of the finest game magazines ever published. Now, Bill Kunkel, a.k.a. The Game Doctor, reveals the untold stories behind both the magazine, and the people who brought us the 'classic' era of electronic gaming, along with other personal memoirs ranging from his early days as a comic book writer and rock guitarist to the sad saga of how his lifelong dream of becoming The Batman became the basis of a nightmarish movie/computer game tie-in experience. Whether you're a fan of videogames, comic books, or simply love to hear good inside stories told with a spark of wit and candor, gather round. Confessions of the Game Doctor is just what the doctor ordered.
Probably no other resource encapsulates the essence of the man more perfectly as in this book. In fact, I would be willing to call this book a "Play Manuel For Women Only". Using this manual is a great asset when Seeking WomenHood. If followed, these epiphanies will enable all the ladies to be successful in every area of feminine responsibility.It is my deepest sincere heartfelt desire, for you, the reader, to realize just how important your existence is in the Divine Scheme Of Life.
When people think of World of Warcraft, they think of a socially awkward, acne-faced teenager with "no life." Confessions of a Teenage Gamer challenges those stereotypes and shows how a kid from a wealthy family with every opportunity at his fingertips ended up finding himself in a video game. Confessions of a Teenage Gamer is funny in its honest retellings of teenage puberty, witty in its commentary on rich suburban life, and thought provoking in a way that questions the meaning behind success and happiness. This true story draws parallels between sports, music, and video games-and shows how, at the core, they teach many of the same lessons. With a successful spine surgeon for a father, a music teacher for a mother, and a house full of driven, high-achieving siblings, Nicolas Cole's Confessions of a Teenage Gamer shows how far one boy will go to chase his dream of becoming a professional gamer.
Probably no other resource encapsulates the essence of the man more perfectly as in this book. In fact, I would be willing to call this book a “Play Manuel For Women Only”. Using this manual is a great asset when Seeking WomenHood. If followed, these epiphanies will enable all the ladies to be successful in every area of feminine responsibility. It is my deepest sincere heartfelt desire, for you, the reader, to realize just how important your existence is in the Divine Scheme Of Life.
