Why This Book?
The game industry is bad at sharing what it knows. Studios often rediscover the same techniques and it’s not their mission to share knowledge widely, they have games to make.
How to Make an RPG is the only book that takes you the whole way: from an empty file to a finished, playable RPG, one step at a time. No one else has written one like it. If you want to make games, it is the most direct route there is.
The alternatives
| Approach | What it covers | Getting to a finished game |
|---|---|---|
| Trial and error | Whatever you work out yourself | You draw the map as you go |
| Web tutorials | Scattered pieces, uneven quality | Gaps you can’t see until you hit them |
| How to Make an RPG | The complete build | One tested path, beginning to end |
Trial and error works, eventually. You will also spend months solving problems that were solved decades ago.
The web has plenty of answers but no map. Tutorials start from different places, contradict each other, and stop before the hard parts. You can’t tell what you’re missing until you’re stuck.
This book is the map. Every part ends with a complete game, so you are always building something that runs.
See the full table of contents, or buy the book.