The Game Jam Survival Guide Review

While although this book specializes on giving advice from different experienced game jam developers, anyone looking for advice on creating games, how to manage everything that needs to be done, and how to prioritize and maximize their time on their project would find this extremely helpful.

It covers pitfalls that any game developer will run into, such as having to cut mechanics due to time, focusing on doing a few things very well vs. lots of things not as well, counting in time for things you might not have planned on, such as adding sound, packaging your game to distribute before the deadline, and planning on things usually going wrong.

Aside from avoiding pitfalls, he also introduced you to resources to improve the speed at which you can create games, such as free sound sites, resources for finding game frameworks/engines, and the best ways to prepare for a game jam (which contrary to what it sound like, does not mean starting from scratch after the game topic has been announced).

I would recommend it for anyone interested in participating in a game jam, building their own game, or interested in what goes into creating a game, and the types of things you’ll have to plan on, and ways of avoiding pitfalls which may keep your game from being completed.

You can pick up the book here:
http://www.packtpub.com/game-jam-survival-guide/book