WRITING
Writing for games, which is very different from writing for presentational media.

Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames, edited by Chris Bateman
There aren’t a lot of books on writing for games, and far too many of them are written by Hollywood screenwriters who think they’re going to come in and tell us how it’s done, without any understanding of what interactivity does to a story. This book is a welcome exception. Drawing his contributors from the International Game Developers’ Association’s Writing SIG, Bateman assembled a group of experienced game writers to produce a chapter apiece on such specialized subjects as dialog engines, nonlinear narratives, localization, and meeting players’ needs. There’s information here you won’t find anywhere else. Full disclosure: Having created the play-by-play for Madden NFL Football for several years, I wrote the chapter on interchangeable dialog audio.

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Creating entertainment, interaction, and comprehension visually.

Creating the Art of the Game, by Matthew Omernick
Most game art books are tied to a specific piece of software, which means that if you don’t own the software, the book is useless to you. This one doesn’t do that – the principles it teaches are applicable regardless of what tools you own. Aimed at beginners, it doesn’t go into great depth, but it does show you how game art gets made, which makes it suitable even for non-artists in the industry.

These three books all go together. They’re classics on the subject of presenting information clearly—and if you don’t think presenting information has anything to do with video games, you aren’t paying attention. Beautifully constructed and lavishly illustrated, Tufte’s books describe how to convey numbers, differences, importance, processes, and numerous other relationships efficiently and unambiguously. A must for user interface designers, and useful for anyone who needs to display data or give presentations.

Pause and Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative, by Mark Stephen Meadows
A very different look at interactive storytelling. Meadows’s approach is overtly visual, as this richly (almost too-richly) illustrated book makes clear. He goes far beyond the usual issues about plot structure – although they are addressed too – and into ways that composition, perspective, and architecture influence narrative, and the nature of interaction itself. This is theory, not practice, and it’s aimed at all forms of media, not just video games. His work would be as valuable to a museum designer as to a game art director. It’s rich stuff and requires a lot of close attention. Don’t expect any how-to or step-by-step instruction, though.

MUSIC AND AUDIO
Sound in video games.

The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness, by George Alastair 'The Fat Man' Sanger
An inspiring work by an industry legend. The Fat Man talks about music and audio in games, but he also talks about his own history as a composer and sound engineer for games. He doesn’t teach you how to make game audio step by step; instead, he teaches you how to think about music and audio in the context of a game. A personal perspective from a unique character.

Next: Online Community and The History of Games