Agile Game Development with Scrum - Clinton Keith

Deliver Better Games Faster, On Budget—And Make Game Development Fun Again!

Game development is in crisis—facing bloated budgets, impossible schedules, unmanageable complexity, and death march overtime. 

It’s no wonder so many development studios are struggling to survive. Fortunately, there is a solution. 

Scrum and Agile methods are already revolutionizing development outside the game industry. 

Now, long-time game developer Clinton Keith shows exactly how to successfully apply these methods to the unique challenges of game development.

Keith has spent more than fifteen years developing games, seven of them with Scrum and agile methods. 

Drawing on this unparalleled expertise, he shows how teams can use Scrum to deliver games more efficiently, rapidly, and cost-effectively; craft games that offer more entertainment value; and make life more fulfilling for development teams at the same time.

You’ll learn to form successful agile teams that incorporate programmers, producers, artists, testers, and designers—and promote effective collaboration within and beyond those teams, throughout the entire process. 

From long-range planning to progress tracking and continuous integration, Keith offers dozens of tips, tricks, and solutions—all based firmly in reality and hard-won experience.

Coverage includes

• Understanding Scrum’s goals, roles, and practices in the context of game development
• Communicating and planning your game’s vision, features, and progress
• Using iterative techniques to put your game into a playable state every two to four weeks— even daily
• Helping all team participants succeed in their roles
• Restoring stability and predictability to the development process
• Managing ambiguous requirements in a fluid marketplace
• Scaling Scrum to large, geographically distributed development teams
• Getting started: overcoming inertia and integrating Scrum into your studio’s current processes

Increasingly, game developers and managers are recognizing that things can’t go on the way they have in the past. 

Game development organizations need a far better way to work.  

Agile Game Development with Scrum gives them that—and brings the profitability, creativity, and fun back to game development.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ]

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.99 out of 5 (85 Ratings; 5 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. Well written. Seems to provide quite useful and practical guidance for teams working in Game development projects. 
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Persuade People with Your Writing - Karen Mannering

The ability to persuade people to agree with you can be crucial to your working life. 
This book will help you apply the psychology of persuasion to your writing. Persuasion expert Karen Mannering guides you through all aspects of business writing, from adverts to business plans, emails to Twitter Feeds, and letters to reports to produce sharper and more productive copy through the power of persuasion. 
[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 2 out of 5 (1 Rating; 0 Review)

My Rating:  2 out of 5.   
My Review: OK sort of book. Got put off by its canned sales oriented suggestions. There may be better books out there on this topic.

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Without A Second - Sheela Balaji

Fundamentals of Vedanta
It is a book that unfolds Vedanta without "quotes" and usual Sanskrit words.
It is an ideal book for gaining the vision of The Whole, the subject matter of Vedanta.
Even for one who has read lot of books with and without the help of a teacher, this book will be found very revealing - rewarding.
The author has identified herself with a seeker and raised all those questions which remain unanswered generally and answered them in detail and clarity in elegant free prose.
It is a book that will clear the fog of doubt and vagueness - it is a book of blessing, page after page.

[Source: Foreword by Swami Dayananda Saraswati] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3 out of 5 (1 Rating; 0 Review)

My Rating:  3 out of 5.  

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The Penguin Guide to Vaastu - Sashikala Ananth

The Classical Indian Science of Architecture and Design

The Penguin Guide to Vaastu is a meticulously researched book that seeks to place the ancient Indian art of Vaastu in its proper perspective as a highly evolved science. 
Almost fifteen hundred years before modern Architecture came into its own, Vaastu Shastra, the Classical Indian treatise on architecture, had set down principles of good planning and design which have been in practice in this country ever since.
Today, people expect a Vaastu application to provide them instant cures and unending prosperity by relocating an entrance, window or room. 
However, Ananth, in this meticulously researched book, seeks to place Vaastu in its proper perspective as a highly evolved science, ridding it of the myths surrounding it. 
She examines the schools of thought existing in the tradition, the system's application, and the responsibilities of the designer.
Supplemented with beautiful illustrations, this book is an authoritative text which combines traditional wisdom with the needs of a modern and transitional society. 

[From the back cover notes] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 2.25 out of 5 (4 Ratings; 1 Review)

My Rating:  2 out of 5.  

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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John le Carré

John le Carré’s third novel—A #1 New York Times bestseller for 34 weeks—and the book that launched his career worldwide.
In the shadow of the newly erected Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas watches as his last agent is shot dead by East German sentries. 
For Leamas, the head of Berlin Station, the Cold War is over. 
As he faces the prospect of retirement or worse—a desk job—Control offers him a unique opportunity for revenge. 
Assuming the guise of an embittered and dissolute ex-agent, Leamas is set up to trap Mundt, the deputy director of the East German Intelligence Service—with himself as the bait. 
In the background is George Smiley, ready to make the game play out just as Control wants.
Setting a standard that has never been surpassed, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a devastating tale of duplicity and espionage
[Source: www.amazon.com ] 
Plot Details 
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Penguin Modern Classics) written by John Le Carre derives its suspense from the setting of its story at the time when tensions were high during the Cold War, as the war between the East and West Berlin raged on with the Berlin wall standing tall between them. 
Alec Leamas is a British spy agent who was sent on a mission to gain information from East Germany. 
His mission fails as the last of his spies is killed.
His superiors, known as the Control, send him on another dangerous mission after this, where he has to find Mundt- the chief of the East German Intelligence.
He starts working at the library, where he comes across Liz, a member of the East German communist party. 
His love affair with her ends dramatically and he is arrested after getting into a fight at a liquor store. 
After this, he finds himself with Ashe, another East German agent. 
Ashe wants to know about the British Intelligence and more so, about Rolling Stone, a bank deposit funding transfer operation.
Leamas meets another East German agent called Fiedler who wants to prove that Mundt is working with the British Intelligence. 
Through fake names, fake passports, secret safehouses and the bleak and grim times of the World War II, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, paints a realistic picture of what happens in the mysterious lives of spies.
The readers are kept guessing on whether Leamas will be exposed and whether Mundt will be captured by the British Intelligence. 

Key Features:

• This book became a smash hit movie in 1965 starring Richard Burton, Oskar Werner and Claire Bloom.
• The book won the Best Crime Novel in 1963 from the Crime Writers Association, an Edgar award for the Best Mystery Novel from Mystery Writers of America and the Dagger of Daggers at the 50th Dagger awards show.

 [ Source: www.amazon.in ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.03 out of 5 (35,847 Ratings; 2,157 Reviews)
My Rating:  4 out of 5.  

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And Thereby Hangs A Tale - Jeffrey Archer

Short Stories
International bestselling author Jeffrey Archer has been gathering spellbinding stories from around the globe. 
These fifteen tales showcase Archer’s talent for capturing an unforgettable moment in time, whether tragic, comic, or outrageous.
 
In India, Jamwal and Nisha fall in love while waiting for a traffic light to turn green on the streets of Delhi.
From Germany comes “A Good Eye,” the tale of a priceless oil painting that has remained in the same family for over two hundred years, until...
To the Channel Islands and “Members Only,” where a golf ball falls out of a Christmas cracker, and a young man’s life will never be the same...
To Italy and “No Room at the Inn,” where a young man who is trying to book a room at a hotel ends up in bed with the receptionist, unaware that she...
To England, where, in “High Heels,” a woman has to explain to her husband why a pair of designer shoes couldn’t have gone up in flames...

Some of these stories will make you laugh while others will bring you to tears but, once again, every one of them will demand that you keep turning the page until you finally discover what happens to this remarkable cast of characters.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.63 out of 5 (4,435 Ratings; 364 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5.  

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The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

When a troubled supermodel falls to her death from the balcony of her London home, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. 

However, her brother has his doubts and calls in private detective Cormoran Strike to investigate.

Strike is a war veteran--wounded both physically and psychologically--and his private life is in disarray. 

The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's world, the darker things get and the closer he comes to terrible danger.

Published to huge acclaim from readers, reviewers, and writers everywhere, The Cuckoo's Calling is a compulsively readable crime novel, the first in a series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.81 out of 5 (247,289 Ratings, 22,706 Reviews)

My Rating:  4 out of 5.  

Buying Options 
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