We at Just Adventure in our never-ending attempts to elevate our readers above the pabulum so prevalent at other webzines (though it is a well-known and widely accepted fact that adventure gamers are the Albert Einsteins of the industry as compared to, say, action gamers, who are the Pauley Shores) are proud to offer our first-ever book review. According to statistics compiled from our recently conducted poll, adventure gamers are voracious readers, so what better to while away those empty hours spent not gaming than to devour a book devoted to the industry? And what a book Game Design: Secrets of the Sages (2nd Edition) is! 454 pages chock-full of trade secrets, interviews, and advice from the gaming industry's shakers and makers. Edited by Marc Saltzman, it is a compilation that should be required reading for everyone who has even a modicum of interest in the gaming profession. As an added incentive, there are plenty of pretty pictures interspersed among the text for our action friends who have problems with any word over a monosyllable (though crayons are not provided for coloring).

Marc Saltzman, a closet adventure gamer, is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in publications as diverse as USA Today and PC Gamer; Playboy and Next Generation (well, considering some of the suggestive advertisements these gaming magazines print, maybe they aren't that different from Playboy). This man bleeds nanochips. If you have ever attended any press junket, any convention, or any E3, then you have met Marc Saltzman. He is a gigabyte of gaming information. But for all his knowledge, he also knows when to stay in the shadows and allow the celebrities to take the podium. It is that quality that makes Secrets of the Sages so intriguing. For in an era in which gaming "journalists" are more concerned with spewing masturbatory reverie to enlighten their readers as to what they think of everything in the gaming world rather than providing a objective review, Saltzman is wise enough to step back and let over 150 industry professionals do the talking for him. Never does he allow his ego to take center stage. Never is it, "I asked Al Lowe," or "I spoke with Jane Jensen," but rather, "We spoke with ... ," or "According to ...." This may seem a minor point to some, but it allows for the personalities of each participant to shine through without interference from the editor's ego.

In 25 chapters, Sages covers every aspect of the gaming industry imaginable. We learn how games are designed, characters created, and puzzles implemented. Chapters are also devoted to animation, sound engineering, and game control. Just this would be enough to make your $24.99 well-spent, but we then get even more on marketing, public relations, web site design, and, of special interest to someone like our own Audrey Wells, an entire chapter with advice on how to break into the industry. If there is any one problem with Sages, it is that it covers too much ground. Saltzman himself admits as much in the book's forward. Other smaller nuances that could have improved: pictures of Jane Jensen, Sid Meier, et al. would have been welcome. Many readers have probably never seen these people. Probably the most glaring oversight of all, though, is that a section entitled "Essential Gaming E-Zines" fails to make mention of everyone's favorite adventure gaming webzine--Just Adventure. I'm sure it was just an error on the part of the typesetter and will be corrected in future editions.

If there is a consistent thread or theme that winds through Secrets of the Sages, it is ... have fun. Everyone from musician George "The Fat Man" Sanger to David Perry, president of Shiny Entertainment, to the honorable Sigeru Miyamoto, the father of Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers, to name just a few, mentions "fun" as a key factor in any game. Not just the fun of playing the finished product, but more importantly the fun involved in creating the characters, writing the plots, and scoring the music. What is most amazing is that even though many of these people work in different areas of the industry and even though many of them have probably never met, they all saw this as the deciding factor in whether on not a game would succeed.

As a die-hard adventure gamer, I found Sages to be an involving read. It is fascinating to hear from these prominent individuals whose informality make you feel as though you have been invited to a dinner party. If you do purchase the second edition, you may also want to hunt down a copy of the first edition as some interviews with adventure notables have been excised. Regardless of which volume you purchase, Game Design: Secrets of the Sages is guaranteed to be a welcome (and well-thumbed) addition to yours or any gamer's bookshelf.

Be with us next month as we delve into movies and bring you a scintillating review of that little-known, cult-classic documentary--Laura Croft--Jailbait or Role-Model?

Now, maestro, my traveling music if you please ...