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 Game Design for Teens (Premier Press Game Development) $29.99 I'm not a game design expert. I'm not in the gaming industry at all, except as a consumer. My son, on the other hand, has expressed a desire to "play test games" as a career. I thought, okay, let's check it out. Game Design for Teens is an introduction to the game design world (a complex, very technical realm), with the purpose of creating a game design document. Good: This book is written to the level of its intended audience. Good: It includes many good/relevant graphics. Good: Not designed to be a science book. Good: Keeps to the purpose/focus of the book with many good/relevant anecdotes. Other: It is a bit verbose/complex at times. Impressions: Good for young people interested in game design/development. Sincerely, JMS  Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood $23.95 It's kind of interesting that two excellent Berkeley-based writers named Michael both happened to come out with a book of ruminations on modern fatherhood (and its corollary, manhood) within a few months of each other. Since we added a second child to our own household a few months ago, and I'm now on (unpaid) leave to take care of him for a few months, this struck me as a good time to check out what two writers I greatly respect have to say on my current profession. (The other book is Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs). To a certain extent, both authors grapple with the state that Lewis articles in his introduction: "Obviously, we're in the midst of some long unhappy transition between the model of fatherhood as practiced by my father and some ideal model." Unfortunately, Lewis has set such a high bar with his past books (Liar's Poker, Moneyball, and The Blind Side), that this loosely assembled patchwork of journal entries and Slate.com essays ends up being a total disappointment. It's kind of stunning to me that someone with his powers of both analysis and storytelling managed to say absolutely nothing interesting, provocative, or even amusing about being a father in this new age of fatherhood. Instead, he paints himself in the usual self-deprecating colors of progressive fatherhood -- ever the bumbling idiot, an object of dismissive scorn by his partner, etc. Almost every situation reads like a story one's already heard before, and his ambivalence about fatherhood will be familiar to, um, pretty much any male reader who's had a kid in the last ten years or so. I guess some people might find this "frank" male perspective enlightening or refreshing, but as a fellow guy, I was mainly bored. Maybe I'm the wrong audience for this book -- after all, I was a stay-at-home dad for about ten months with our first child. It may be that his incredibly minor trials and tribulations end up sounding kind of whiny. Ultimately, I wish he could have found a fresh angle to take on the topic of parenting. For example, he knows a lot about incentives, he could have examined his own parenting through the lens of incentives (and arrived at a better version of the book Parentonomics). Or, as in Moneyball, he could have taken a look at the historically dominant paradigm of contemporary fathering and examined why that's undergone a dramatic shift in certain demographics (such as his) over the last ten years or so. Like I said, I really like Michael Lewis' past books, but this one is a dud. Skip it and try out Michael Chabon's much funnier, provocative, and more emotionally compelling Manhood for Amateurs instead.  Rabbids Go Home $49.99 This game is the most fun I have had playing Wii. This is my first Rabbid game so I don't know what what offered in the past by this series. All I know is I haven't been able to put this game down. The intuitive use of the Wii remote and nunchuck is the best of any game I have owned thus far. It's a blast  More Math Games & Activities from Around the World $14.95 Math, history, art, and world cultures come together in this delightful book for kids, even for those who find traditional math lessons boring. More than 70 games, puzzles, and projects encourage kids to hone their math skills as they calculate, measure, and solve problems. The games span the globe, and many have been played for thousands of years, such as three-in-a-row games like Achi from Ghana or the forbidden game of Jirig from Mongolia. Also included are imaginative board games like Lambs and Tigers from India and the Little Goat Game from Sudan, or bead and string puzzles from China, and Mbius strip puzzles from Germany. Through compelling math play, children will gain confidence and have fun as they learn about the different ways people around the world measure, count, and use patterns and symmetry in their everyday lives. |
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