The Indie Game Developer Handbook

by Richard Hill-Whittall

The indie game developer’s complete guide to running a studio. The climate for the games industry has never been hotter, and this is only set to continue as the marketplace for tablets, consoles and phones grow. Seemingly every day there is a story of how a successful app or game has earned thousands of downloads and revenue. As the market size increases, so does the number of people developing and looking to develop their own app or game to publish. The Indie Game Developer Handbook covers every aspect of running a game development studio―from the initial creation of the game through to completion, release and beyond.

Genres: Game Design, Video Games, Games, Nonfiction, Business

278 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2015

Reviews

[MetalGearRex · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book does not aim at guiding you through the development of your indie game. Yes, it has a few good advices, especially in regard to choosing your engine (it is better to use a 3rd party engine instead of trying to build your own). It focuses more on the topics outside the actual development - the financial side of things, marketing and distribution. The last part makes it really useful, as probably most inexperienced people won't think much about those things and focus on creating an awesome game. The book mentions a lot of companies, sites and so on that you can use to for all the purposes that your successful game will require, but it is more of a list of recommendations with some thoughts following it. This is not bad, but in my opinion it will work more like a reference guide for "how should I do this", which you refer at some point during the development of your game(s).
Nevertheless, the book offers some good advice in almost all areas connected to the development of an indie game, although often those are close to common sense. Here though I should mention that maybe me being in the game development industry for three years now (as an employee) has brought me to some of those "common sense insights".

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few good ideas, a good outline for guidelines for starting a game company.

Many of the passages are unprofessional beyond being colloquial. It feels lazy or like they didn’t have an editor. For example, some websites are listed to fill up space without covering their actual function. Many of the interviews of other companies are downright useless.

Much of the information is out of date at this point. (This was published even before the Nintendo Switch was released.)

At least it’s a good start, if this is the first book you pick up on this topic.

[mrv90 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also i didn't read it from cover to cover but it's a wonderful book! this book don't tell you how to build indie stuffs but does tell you about the game industry, some experience of successful people and how to face common obstacles.

[Michal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the sporadic interviews more intriguing than the rest of the book to be honest.

The contents is ok but as others said, there’s too many outdated links rendering a lot of it quite literally useless.

Still worth a scan-through.

[Nikolaos Chatzigeorgiadis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly a list of (a bit outdated) links from around the web.

[Darryl Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic resource full of sources and reviews and great advice for those getting started in gamedev.

[Miguel · Rating 1 out of 5]

completamente desfasado

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's mostly just links to other websites.