Game Engine Programming Book

hi guys. i recently acquired a copy of beginning game programming sams and have started to work through it. and i thought i would give you a review.

Beginning game programming (sams teach yourself)

at the start the author talks about what you need in a simple game engine, which i thought was helpful as i had never seen an engine before, and then goes on to explain small snippets of the code to you. And how he names his variables and functions which is all good. further through the book he shows us how to implement keyboard and mouse input and joystick movement, which is quite insightful, although one downside is he spends a whole chapter on joystick input, which for beginning game programming i thought was not very helpful. he then shows you how to put a simple "game" together. although it is not actually a game it is more of an animation. it basically shows a blank window with snowflakes appearing in it. This i thought was quite good although there was not much support if the code did not work. For example i had trouble with the resource file (which is basically a file like any you make in VC++ but it provides links to images sprites and other things like that.) The only solution to this problem was too look on the internet in some forums. Fair enough he is teaching us about your first simple graphics program to quite a wide audience, and not everybody in that audience uses VC++ to code. So help was not really expected.

The author goes on further to teach us about simple games. Like the classic game Light Cycles. which utilizes all you have learned so far. and provides quite detailed explanations to certain features.

Final Thought:

Pros:

this book has some promise as it shows you a simple game engine. although i was hoping that they would break this down into a sort of primer and then ask you to build one like C++ primer plus did. But one feature that i liked was how he shows us how to make a wandering game which has a similar feel to Pokemon.

Cons:

the book simply threw you into code to fast. i feel that for a beginner it is easier to digest smaller chunks of code before moving onto a complete game engine. The fact that the game engine isn't explained line by line like other books is a bit of a downer as well. The author also started to go into to much detail about unimportant things. This knowledge is pretty much already know to anyone who plays games and would have been better if it had instead gone into detail about the code itself.

Verdict for Beginners:

Buy it if you want to learn how to make a game engine and build upon it. but a good knowledge of C++ is required Prerequisites i would recommend are C++ primer plus. But this book will not show you how to make 3D games so don't buy it if you think it will. The author recommended to us that Teach yourself game programming with directx in 21 days so that is the next book i will Review :D

talk to you later :D

heres a very insignificant update. i bought beginning game programming, because i feel i have made enough progress with game deving text based games to move onto 2d games. i cant wait!. the only downside is that it will take about 2 weeks to get here. which will give me more time to get my c++ skills up to a higher level.

and i hope that transition from text games to 2d games will help to encourage me to learn more and faster. i will give you an update when i finish my next game i am going to work on

A text based gang game. should be fun :D

bye!

C++ primer plus

i recently purchased C++ primer plus, since my exams are now OVER!!!. anyways i have started working through the chapters and i have gotten to about chapter 6 which include logical operations and the like. So far the book is really good and i was impressed by how much i have learned from it already.

Anyways, i have started developing a simple text based rpg to which i am going to be implementing alot more new things.

for instance

the ability to choose your own class e.g warrior, mage, archer
hitpoints - which will of course include making it so that the monsters you face will damage you with number and not just the text saying oh dear you are dead.


once i have finished the C++ primer plus book i will let you know my thoughts and i will also keep you up to date with my text based rpg and if i am getting any books in the for see-able future

p.s got my PS3 at the weekend and it is awesome i love it so much and have been playing none stop for ages now :D anyways talk to you later