I found a book called Game Development Essentials: An Introduction at a book-sharing station. Despite being 20 years old, it turned out to be quite decent in parts. I picked up a few interesting ideas. From what I understand, the author isn’t really a developer, but she did a great job with the literature review on the topic.
I’ve always thought that books like these are a waste of time; that they’re full of clichés and that experience in this field can only be gained through practice. But no. There’s useful information there; even if you don’t find anything radically new, you can get inspired with fresh ideas simply by studying material that someone else has organized.
Books are the quintessence of someone’s thoughts. And even fairly mediocre thoughts, when organized, can provide food for new ideas.
Now I’m curious to read some more modern books. I’ve got plenty of practical experience in game development, but I’ve never really studied the theory 🙂 Seems like it’s about time.