Buttonless: Incredible iPhone and iPad Games and the Stories Behind Them
Features
- Includes a foreword written by John Davison
- Presents an in-depth resource for iPhone and iPad game developers
- Helps serious gamers learn more about the developers behind the games
- Describes hundreds of titles
- Covers games that are not widely known
Summary
On the forefront of the mobile gaming revolution are real people with stories that are crazy, stressful, hilarious, and, in some cases, heart-wrenching. Written by respected video game journalist Ryan Rigney, with a foreword by John Davison, Buttonless tells the stories of the people behind the games.
Rigney takes you on a tour that covers more than 65 of the best and most beloved iPhone and iPad games, telling the never-before-heard tales behind them. Based on more than 100 exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names in iOS development, Buttonless chronicles the adversities that top developers had to overcome and delivers numerous funny/interesting anecdotes from behind the scenes of the iTunes App Store.
Examples include:
- George Fan - Lead Designer of Plants vs. Zombies
- Kris Piotrowski - Co-creator of Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP
- Jaakko Iisalo - Lead Designer of Angry Birds
- Katherine Anna Kang - Head of id Mobile and Lead Designer of Doom II RPG
- Justin Smith - Creator of Enviro-Bear 2010
- Paul Bettner - Lead Designer of Words With Friends
- Simon Oliver - Creator of Rolando
- Donald Mustard - Lead Designer of Infinity Blade
... and plenty of others
You'll also learn:
- The real origins of Angry Birds
- How iOS critical darling Jet Car Stunts was born from one of the worst games of 1999––Carmageddon 3
- Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman's weird obsession with leaping out of windows
- How the first-ever Iraqi video game went unpublished for 20 years before becoming an iOS exclusive
- The tweet that saved Words With Friends
- The napkin drawing that became the biggest-selling comic book series on the App Store
Table of Contents
Introduction. 100 Rogues. A Short Game About Jumping. Across Age DX. Angry Birds. . Babylonian Twins Premium. Battle for Wesnoth. Blobster. The Blocks Cometh. Broken Sword. Canabalt. Compression. Cow Trouble. Cut the Rope. Dark Nebula. Dirt. Doodle Jump. Doom II RPG. Edge. Enviro-Bear 2010. EpicWin. Flight Control. Forget-Me-Not. Frogatto. Fruit Ninja. Garage Inc. Geared. Godville. Halcyon. Hand of Greed. Hard Lines. Helsing’s Fire. Hook Champ. The Incident. Infinity Blade. Jet Car Stunts. Karoshi. Labyrinth 2. Land-a Panda. Minigore. Monkey Island. Mos Speedrun. Nimble Strong. No, Human. Osmos. Pizza Boy. Plants vs. Zombies. Pocket God. Pocket Legends. Poto and Cabenga. The Raging Dead. Robosockets. Rolando. Shot Shot Shoot. Silverfish. Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure. Solipskier. Soosiz. Space Miner. Spider. Super Stickman Golf. Superbrothers. Sword of Fargoal. Tilt to Live. Tiny Tower. Toki Tori. Words With Friends. Zen Bound.
Author Bio(s)
Ryan Rigney is a freelance journalist who has covered the video-game industry from every angle for publications and sites including Gamasutra, PC Gamer and GamePro. He lives in Oxford, MS, where he is pursuing an education in journalism at Ole Miss' Meek School of Journalism and New Media.
Editorial Reviews
"An in-depth exploration of gaming's fastest growing space penned by one of its most avid and enthusiastic advocates."
— Will Herring, reviews editor at GamePro Magazine
"The App Store is so incredibly fluid, the way Buttonless locks the wonderful little stories behind them in typographical amber is nothing short of a public service."
— Justin McElroy, managing editor at Joystiq.com
