Oh, She's Bookish: Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

Completed: October 19th, 2026

Certainly the most entertaining book that Jason Schreier has written. Conversely, you will learn the least about game development. It’s just the nature of having ~30 pages to describe the development of a game that could take 10 years. It doesn’t have the intensive, journalistic treatment that Play Nice had and, to be completely honest, I couldn’t tell you what Press Reset was about or what topics it covered. It has totally exited my brain, which is sad. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is just fun.

I guarantee if you love video games that at least one of the games (as they are broken out by chapter) will be present and you will learn something new about that game’s development. This book covers: Pillars of Eternity, Stardew Valley, Destiny, Halo Wars, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Diablo III, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

More than anything, this book made me re-engage with games I would never play. I was so fascinated by the Dragon Age: Inquisition chapter that I found the original demo footage that had caused the team such havoc and began watching a Lets Play shortly after to just understand what was promised (plus comments from that year) compared to the critical reception shortly after. I loved seeing how a Bungie on top of the world (2007) were so protective and threw so many wrenches in the way of Ensemble, who were in the process of imploding. The manic decision making that almost resulted in a Halo MMO. More than anything, I can highly recommend this book because it’s so fun. No chapter overstays its welcome, so you can always skip or bounce around!