Postmortems from Game Developer

Editor Austin Grossman has expertly compiled and commented on the postmortems to bring insight to the collection. (Each Game Developer postmortem is credited to its respective author.) Presently a consultant on game design and interactive story development, Austin has 10 years' experience in the computer gaming industry. Notable writing and design credits include Ultima Underworld II and System Shock for Looking Glass Technologies and Trespasser: Jurassic Park for Dreamworks Interactive. Other credits include contributions to EA Games' Clive Barker's Undying, Ion Storm's Deus Ex, and Liquid Entertainment's Battle Realms.

The popular Postmortem column in Game Developer magazine features firsthand accounts of how some of the most important and successful games of recent years have been made. This book offers the opportunity to harvest this expertise with one volume. The editor has organized the articles by theme and added previously unpublished analysis to reveal successful management techniques. Readers learn how superstars of the game industry like Peter Molyneux and Warren Spector have dealt with the development challenges such as managing complexity, software and game design issues, schedule challenges, and changing staff needs.

Startups; Chapter 1 Irrational Games' System Shock 2, Jonathan Chey; Chapter 2 Bohemia Interactive Studios' Operation Flashpoint, Marek Spanel, Ondrej Spanel; Chapter 3 Surreal Software's Drakan: Order of the Flame, Stuart Denman; Chapter 4 Pseudo Interactive's Cel Damage, Kevin Barrett, John Harley, Rich Hilmer, Daniel Posner, Gary Snyder, David Wu; Chapter 5 Nihilistic Software's Vampire: The Masquerade-Redemption, Robert Huebner; Chapter 6 Ensemble's Age Of Empires, Pritchard Matt; Sequels and Sophomore Outings; Chapter 7 Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo II, Erich Schaefer; Chapter 8 Epic Games' Unreal Tournament, Brandon Reinhart; Chapter 9 Westwood Studios' Tiberian Sun, Rade Stojsavljevic; Chapter 10 Ensemble Studios' Age Of Empires II: The Age Of Kings, Matt Pritchard; Chapter 11 Presto Studios' Myst III: Exile, Greg Uhler; Chapter 12 Poptop Software's Tropico, Brent Smith; Managing Innovation; Chapter 13 Lionhead studio's Black & White, Peter Molyneux; Chapter 14 Bungie software's Myth: The Fallen Lords, Jason Regier; Chapter 15 Looking Glass's Thief: The Dark Project, Tom Leonard; Chapter 16 Dream Works Interactive's Trespasser, Richard Wyckoff; Chapter 17 Ion Storm's Deus Ex, Warren Spector; Chapter 18 Naughty Dog's Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Stephen White; Building on a License; Chapter 19 LucasArts' Star Wars(TM) Starfighter, Chris Corry; Chapter 20 Raven Software's Star Trek(TM): Voyager - Elite Force, Brian Pelletier, Michael Gummelt, James Monroe; Chapter 21 Red Storm Entertainment's Rainbow Six, Upton Brian; Chapter 22 Raven Software's Soldier of Fortune, Eric Biessman, Rick Johnson; The Online Frontier; Chapter 23 Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot, Matt Firor; Chapter 24 Multitude's Fireteam, Art Min; Chapter 25 Turbine's Asheron's Call, Toby Ragaini;