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Rating: 
Summary: Where's the beef?
Review: I bought this book hoping for information on fractals, random number theory, compression, etc. Very disappointed. He seemed to lean heavily on a few particular sources that I didn't think were very strong. (For example, I can't imagine anyone covering random numbers without mentioning Knuth's book which is considered one of the authorities on the matter.)Basically, this book spends a lot of time describing to you in generalities the basic principles, without actually giving any compelling examples. In many cases, he teases you by talking about what *could* be done with the types of techniques he is describing, and you're like, "all right, now we're getting interesting." But then he never actually gets around to the meat of the matter. He talked a lot about fractals in general, but never any good examples of how to actually make fractals. Or in the chapter "probabilitity as a compression technique" (which is only 5 pages long, btw) he discussed RLE encoding, which is an excellent trivial example. The only problem is, that's where he stopped - I can't believe he didn't discuss ADPCM encoding, for example. It's not that this is a beginner, book, either. There really just isn't that much material at any level. I'm still trying to figure out where all the pages went. Basically, a disappointment. Lots of fluff. Not much math, which is what the title would lead you to believe this book is all about.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't live up to the title...
Review: I got this book because the title sounded like just the sort of good algorithm design discussion I was interested in. Sadly, the book doesn't live up to expectations. By a long shot. I got the book before reviews were up on this site, unfortunately... Listen to these reviewers! The book provides a lot of interesting discussion and pontification without a lot of specifics or advanced concepts. The techniques described are nowhere near cutting-edge. It honestly reminds me of listening to one of my CS professors rambling after a long day. The upside is that it contains a lot of interesting ideas and could be a good introductory text for programmers not already experienced in advanced algorithms, real-world game design, or higher mathematics. Unfortunately, that's a small audience, I suspect.
Rating:
Summary: Big, big dissapointment
Review: The "universe simluation" view of game design draws on a diverse array of topics in computer science: random number sequences, cellular automata, neural networks, fractals, formal languages, scripting, object-oriented systems, physics, algorithms, data compression, artificial intelligence. While Thompson's book manages to touch on most of the above, no topic is explored or applied in any real depth, and the difficult prose hinders reading. The text is full of off-hand references to the classic computer game "Elite" as an example of an infinite game universe, but awfully short on specifics. A few hours of web research into gaming sites would have filled in the blanks. Even more shocking is the omission of "Starflight"---a groundbreaking computer role-playing game that used a good number of techniques in this book (i.e. fractal terrain generation) to support hundreds of detailed, explorable planets and star systems, each with its own atmospheric conditions, mineral deposits, ancient ruins, and mysterious life-forms. All that crammed onto a 720K disk---surely of great interest to this book's audience. Why is there no coverage of this classic? Likewise, I can't understand why the author provides an illustrated reference to "R-Type" --- the most predictable shoot-em-up game ever --- while not mentioning the massive, still-unequaled world-simulation that was "Ultima VII - The Black Gate." What exposition remains is obscured by the awful writing style and distinct lack of mathematical rigor. What should you read instead? I recommend "The Computational Beauty of Nature" for the math side, "The Official Book of Ultima" for the design philosophy; you can read up online about the relationship of object-oriented systems to simulations. For people who are thinking about game design, read up on Interactive Fiction and some of the old papers applying discrete maths to storyline, plot, character, environment. I've been planning for years to write a book on these types of games someday---perhaps it'll be sold on Amazon? :-)
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