Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required, Second Edition [With CDROM]

Now in its second edition "Awesome Game Creation" is a complete course in computer game creation. The first chapters cover the basics of graphics and sound creation, manipulation, and editing. This is followed by a somewhat nostalgic chapter on the history of game development and the various genres of games. Finally, the last of the foundational information is supplied in the chapter on game designing elements.With that background firmly in mind, the authors take you on what is basically a visual tour of game development history. First you start out making simple two-dimensional games with simple graphics and move from there up to making three-dimensional games with advanced polygon graphics.Some of the software supplied with the book are complete versions, some allow you to create a fully functional game but don't allow you to make a game you can distribute, and others are thirty-day demo versions of the software.Besides basic image editors and sound editors, the supplied software includes game creation engines and commercial game editors. The game creation software includes Game Maker, Games Factory, Pie 3D Game Creation System, and 3D Gamemaker. Other software includes GMax to modify commercial games, MilkShape 3D polygon modeler, and Paint Shop Pro. How awesome of a game can you create with the knowledge gained from this book? Well that is actually a function of the creativity of the game creator. Even with the best software you can't create a truly awesome game if you have limited creative ability. On the other hand, I have seen creative people make amazing games with far more simplistic software than this. This is a recommended book for anyone with more of a creative spirit than a knowledge of programming.

Being a newcomer to the game development industry, I found this book to be very informative. The elements of game design covered in the book are pretty straightfoward, and it gives the reader a good understanding of the basics of game design documents and so on.The down side to this book is that it covers a lot of programs that you can't/won't use for making a commercial product, like GameMaker. These programs are good to learn to get an idea of how things work and link together, which is important knowledge for scripting a game, but little else can be acquired from learning them.The other bad thing about this book is that even though this is the 2nd edition, not all the files on the CD match up with the files reffered to in the book. This is a bit of a letdown, as I was hoping to see a sample of a more involved game design document.Ultimately, its a good starting point, but you'll need more books after this one for certain.

These reviews are from the previous edition, which is now OUT OF Print.The second edition was just published in mid June 2002.

Wow! This book is incredible. Perhaps one of the best that I've read. .... But Ahearn's AGC: NPR is an incredible title. A far cry better than any other CRM title I have read thus far.If you are already a knowledgable and talented user of The Games Factory, you really have no use for this book, except to refresh yourself on Game Design Theory. However, if you are new to the program, or don't even know what it is, you are in LUCK!This title covers the basics, and then even goes into advanced items, such as transparencies, graphics, and even using 3D software to create 3d games, possibly on parallel with Doom, if the creator is talented enough.I'm more than impressed with the title, and inally, Charles River Media has not disappointed me. It's such a great book, even the preface gets me pumped up. I recommend this book to anyone interested in game design, but didn't know where to start.

Realy gets down to the basics and it gets into the more involed topics.. Great book bottem line