Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games

I’ve played far too many hours of Civilization throughout my life. If you haven’t, or you’re not an aspiring game designer, then you may find large sections of Sid Meier’s Memoir! hard to appreciate. But I do love Sid Meier’s games and I do dabble in making games as a hobby. So, I really appreciated this memoir that takes you through Meier’s entire career as well as some of his rules of game design that have made him so successful. This book is not a deep dive. Each chapter, which generally covers a game or two, provides some insight about how a game was developed and why it worked (or did not work) for the player. But the chapters are short, and many of them concentrate on just one aspect of the game or Meier’s philosophy. The two things I found most interesting were the inspiration behind each game, and the gameplay rules that Meier learned over time. It’s not a tell-all, and it doesn’t cover much about the video game business. You won’t get a play-by-play about the development of Civilization VI. Meier says that he left much of the business side to his partners. Instead, this is a book about the creative process. Meier touches on enough of his personal life to give you a general outline of his life and some of the real-life hobbies that led to some of his best games. Again, most of the details are left out, but there’s enough there to be inspiring. The thing I found the most surprising in the entire book, is that despite his high position, Meier continued to be an active participant in the programming of his games (or at least the prototypes) late into his career. In short, Sid Meier’s Memoir! is limited in its scope. It’s mainly about game design and the creative process. But it does that well. You won’t quite feel like you’re in the trenches with the team making Civilization, but you will feel like you have a sense of where their head was at. The lessons about game design and the creative process that Meier provides are drawn from deep experience and most seem self-evidently true. The writing is clear and the insights are real. If you loved his games or you want to make games, you should read this book.

I grew up with Sid Meier's games and love them to this day. I also love reading about early video game development -- it was quite an interesting industry at the time and I find it fascinating to read about the various small shops that were responsible for some great early games. This is all to say, I am very squarely the target audience for this book, and I really enjoyed it. But, quite frankly, it wasn't a great book. The prose was fine, the insights were fine, the organization of the book was fine. It was a pretty good book about a topic that I am extremely interested in. If you are even modestly interested in Sid Meier or early game development, I think you'll find this a worthwhile read. If those topics don't appeal to you, then you should probably look elsewhere. This is not a great piece of literature. It's not Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. If you don't bring an interest for the topic, I don't think you'll find it as you read the book.

I really enjoyed getting a look inside Sid Meier's head and a first hand recap of his career. His positive outlook has a tendency to minimize the conflicts he encountered along the way, making this more of a warm story of a game designer looking for and finding inspiration than a thrilling climb to prominence in an industry. Given the events that unfold, a different person writing could easily have told the latter story, but that's not Sid Meier's style. I liked the humble telling of remarkable events, and especially the perceptive analysis along the way. Overall I found the book inspiring, and I enjoyed reading both his experiences as well as his insights on game design and life.

I can't think of a better computer game designer who crossed genres multiple times with big hits the way Sid Meier did. I grew up on his games, and the book was a delight to read. It is sprinkled with interesting tidbits on game design.

While I'm very impressed with the success Sid Meier has achieved as a professional game developer, this book is surprisingly bland. I imagine that if you have an intense affection for one or more of his games, it's cool to go "behind the scenes" about what was happening in Sid Meier's life at the time the game came out, but if you're a professional software developer and/or game developer, there is limited value in these pages. I wish this book contained more stories about the challenges Sid and his co-workers had to overcome in creating certain games, or the tools and/or programming languages he used to build games (and why he picked them). It would be cool too to learn about the challenges in porting games from one platform to another. I don't want to give the impression that this book is poorly written; Sid Meier is clearly a real smart guy who loves building and playing video games. I just wish he gave us more of a "behind the scenes / under the hood" look at game development.

Since I retired I have been indulging in pleasures I didn't have enough time for, and gaming is one of them. I have been a huge fan of the Civilization series, and also have fond memories of Railroad Tycoon Deluxe. But Civilization is the one that has absorbed thousands of hours of my life over the last 3 decades, and it is still my favorite gaming experience. So when I saw this memoir was available I had to get it, and I'm glad I did. Now, to be clear this is only something of interest for a fan like me, but there are a *lot* of Civilization fans out there. You need only check out the many YouTube channels, web sites, subreddits, etc. devoted to this game to see how popular it is. This memoir simply tells the story of Sid Meier's life in computer games, as the title advertises. I had a good time reading it, and I'm glad I purchased it. If you are also a fan of Civilization in it's many versions I think you will enjoy this work.

As a fan of Sid Meier games, I liked this one. Lots of interesting stories like the unreleased dinosaur game, the non-existent atomic Gandhi bug myth (yes guys, it's not real!), the inspiration Sid had for all his games, based on his real hobbies and interests (golf, history, trains, etc.), and many more. It's a strong recommendation for all the fans.

I have been a fan of MicroProse Games and Sid Meier for a long time, and never realized a lot of the MicroProse games were really written by Sid Meier. There is a lot to the history and timelines of the games and Sid's life that I never would have known. In addition, the writing is engaging. Just like his games make me want to play one more turn, the book makes me want to read one more chapter. It is a really fun, enjoyable book.

Fajnie przeczytać historię życia kogoś kto przez lata był synonimem świetnej, pozytywnej rozgrywki w budowanie, przeżywanie przygód i poznawanie świata przedstawionego. Do tego prawie zawsze w nieco innej konwencji, świeżej tematyce, zawsze wykonane ze smakiem i solidnością. Książka pozwala poznać całkiem sporo o życiu prywatnym i młodości Sida, zrozumieć dlaczego tworzył takie a nie inne gry, a także wiele zabawnych faktów i historii. Pokrzepiający dowód na to że gry wideo to wspaniałe hobby dla każdego.

I loved Sid's games as a child in the 80s and was very happy to have read the book. He comes across as being a really lovely guy. If you ever spent hours and hours and hours building (or trying to build) an Earth-conquering civilization, then you'll enjoy this.

Delivered as expected. Great quality

Good book that was interesting to read. The achievements were funny

He descubierto que Sid Meier había hecho más juegos de los que yo pensaba y a los que también había jugado hace décadas. Un relato inspirador y un vistazo desde dentro a los primeros días del mundo del desarrollo de lo que ahora llamaríamos juegos indies.