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Comment by dopeboy | Hacker News Reader

I'll pass on the recommendation that previous HNers have to me: if you haven't read Masters of Doom yet, do it. Whether you're an entrepreneur or an engineer or both, it's a really inspirational and informative tale. It also talks about these .plan files.

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There is also Making of Prince of Persia book, which is great read as well.

I enjoyed both Master of Doom and the two Mechner books (for Karateka and PoP). Can anyone suggest similar long-form blogs or books where a single developer talks about a programming journey they took? (Nat Friedman - Ximian - had a great blog 2002-2006ish of this nature, but it has since gone down.)

I can recommend Stay Awhile and Listen by David L. Craddock which tells the story of how the original Diablo was made. It's mostly told in interviews, so while it's not a single developer's story a lot of it is first hand.

You should definitely check out Bob Pape's book about the spectrum version of Rtype (and Rampage)

http://bizzley.imbahost.com/download.html

About half way through so far, thanks! :)

Totally agree, also The making of Karateka is worth a read

I hope he will publish third book about development of The Last Express.

I'm definitely getting it if he does. For others, I never played Karateka (got the retro iOS version a while ago) but the book stands on its own without having played any of the involved games (of course, having lived through it helps, so you know what games in those days involved)

Fantastic book. Find the audiobook version, narrated by Wil Wheaton — it's a captivating listen. (And a joy for anyone who grew up with PC shareware back in the 90's.)

Absolutely. Masters of Doom was a compelling read. And reread.

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