Beginning Game Programming

Anyone looking to learn how to develop computer games has found the right book in "Beginning Game Programming". The reader is walked through the production of seven complete (and fun!) games, starting with a simple Memory type game, and moving up through various styles of games including a frogger clone and a Missile Defense clone, until finally ending with a game titled "Stunt Jumper", which brings together all of the techniques learned throughout the book. Morrison's method of teaching is really quite brilliant. Only the most essential parts of the source code are listed in the book, the rest is on the accompanying CD. Once a particular part of the code is explained, it isn't explained again later, even if it's central to the game being made. The reason for this is simple. It makes the user type the code again with each game, which reinforces the concepts presented. If you have to physically do it yourself every time (as you will when you are a professional game developer), you will have a much more solid grasp of both the code, and much more importantly, the concepts behind the code. The reader is expected to already have a solid grasp of C++, and at least a partial understanding of Win32 programming. While others have complained about these requirements, I feel they are actually the books strong point. I've read many books geared towards beginning game programming - and all of them stop after giving you the basics. Very few of them actually walk you completely through making an entire game, let alone seven! Every aspect of game programming is shown here, from loading the bitmaps as resources to display on the screen, to getting music playing, to various ways of accepting input from the user, even going so far as to include joystick support. Lot's of little things that other books leave out are covered in detail also. Just how do you get a high score to display properly on the screen? Explained here. How do I get my background to scroll? Covered. How the heck am I supposed to eliminate that annoying flickering my sprites keep doing? No problem, this book will show you. If you've ever been frustrated with other newbie style books either not giving enough information, or glossing over extremely complex processes without fulling explaining anything, then this book is for you. If you have no background whatsoever in programming, but want a quick route to learning game development, start with Game Development All in One (First Edition), and as soon as you've finished the section on Win32 programming, junk that book and move to this one. At the end you will have a completely solid grasp on game programming, and enough background to switch back to Game Development All in One and move on the chapters covering more complex stuff like DirectX.

This is a great book. Ideal if you're pretty solid with C++ and want to start programming games. I found this book to be very informative and fun to read. It is professionally written but is also not a dry read like some other books in this genre. The most common complaint I've seen about this book is from people who didn't read the part in the introduction or the book description where it said you have to know C++. That's where the complaint "He doesn't give much explanation on the code and I couldn't understand it" comes from. I'll say it again, you need to be familiar with the C++ programming language to understand this book. In his wisdom, Michael Morrison avoids using the more complicated aspects of the language, you won't see namespaces, multiple inheritance, imbedded classes, linked lists, etc... so only a basic understanding of the language is required. Be familiar with, pointers, arrays, functions, and classes and you'll have no trouble understanding this book. There is also a C++ primer in the CD incase you need a little refreshing or clarifying. This book teaches game programming with Win32 API, love it or hate it, you'll end up using it eventually in your programming lifetime, so this is a good place to get familiar with it. One of the main things I liked about this book, however, is that most of the book focuses on important game programming concepts, so even if you want to go into SDL, OpenGL, DirectX, etc... you'll still find this book useful. You'll learn how to manage multiple enemies on the screen with very little overhead, increase the difficulty as the game progresses, keep track of high scores, and many other important things, because it's one thing to know the mecanics of making a game, it's another to know how to apply them. And because these things aren't specific to any language, API, or graphic library, they will be useful wherever your game programming career takes you. I was also pleased how Morrison follows OOP concepts, which makes things much simpler. I read on review which said the examples don't work, and I don't know where he got that idea. I have run every executable on the CD and typed up every example in the book and haven't found a single syntax error. There are a few downsides however. For loading bitmaps, Morrison frequently uses resources, good idea, since these are small games it's better if the bitmaps are compiled into the code so everything's one file. Unfortunatly, he doesn't explain how to create resources, perhaps explaining how it's done in Dev-C++, Borland C++, and Visual C++, since those are what most people are using. I guess he thought people would be more familiar with their IDEs, but considering this book is designed for people just starting graphics programming, I think that was an oversight on his part. Fortunatly you can find it explained on the forums on his website (which is listed in the book) so it was a small bump in the road. The other complaint I have is that h

This book is: - a very good step by step tour of basic games on Windows. - packed with examples and source code - full of suggestions on what to add on your own - supported well on the author's web site This book is not: - a C++ book to teach C++, but uses C++ - an advanced book - a 3d programming book - a directx book I have done C++ programming for years and bought this for my son, who expressed interest in building games. I ended up going through it myself and enjoying it. This goes through the basics of setting up a game loop, drawing sprites, interacting with mouse, joystick, and keyboard, things like that. It gets you going up to the point of a 2d side scroller, but no further. This is great, though, because to do the more complex stuff correctly, you really need several people. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone learning to build games on the PC. But if you've never done any programming at all, you could learn some with this book, but may want to get a beginning C++ book first.

I'm the author of the book, and I want to point out that you can download all of the example games directly from my Web site (www.michaelmorrison.com) for free. Think of it as a "try before you buy" option so that you can see exactly what kinds of games are developed in the book. I also offer online support forums for the book on my Web site, so if you have questions or suggestions about the game code you can share them and get feedback directly from me and other readers.