Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX [With CDROM]

I read many different game programming books. I think this one is best. However, I don't think this book is good for a beginner who doesn't know anything about game programming but C++ and Win32 Programming. Right, some of the sample codes in the book doesn't compile. However, I can always make the code work and run in VC++.NET after using a new project file and adding a little modification on the code, so I believe it is due to the different version of DirectX SDK you installed. The best part of this book that differs from the other books is that the author provides a small system to write the RPG game. The author teaches us how to create serveral different editors/sub-system to create the game. He show us about how to create Item Edtior(MIL Editor), MagicList Editor(MSL Editor, Character Editor (MCL Editor), Character-To-Item Editor(CharICS), and Script Editor(MSL Editor). I found it is especially useful to learn about desining Script Engine and Script Editor in the book. His script engine is simple and good enough so that you can define your own Script syntax. all you left to do is to implement the function that associates with Script Syntax you define and that's it. If you are good at creating Game Editor, then you're almost good at creating games. of course, you may not able to design a good game. However, at least you will be able to implement a game systematically after reading this book. Anyone who is serious about learning game programming should buy this book.

Need I point out that computer game playing has become big business. With the commercial market flat, or perhaps even slowing down (businesses find that for word processing you don't get any more performance out of the latest Pentium 4 than you get out of earlier machines and are upgrading much more slowly). Game playing, on the other hand, needs all the computer power that can be had. With each increase in processing and especially in video processing power the realism of the game gets better. Now with the advent of Direct X Version 9.0 the programming of games has progressed far beyond where it was when I first got involved. In this book, a master of the profession covers game programming from beginning to intermediate level. He also includes a lot of software that you will need to design state of the art games. This includes: DirectX 9/0, Paint Shop Pro, gameSpace, GoldWave. With the growth of the business, the need for programmers has likewise increased. Reading this book won't guarantee you a job in the business, but without the knowledge it contains, you won't get one.

I found the 1st edition of this book to be the best book on this topic I have found. I use much of the code and many of the concepts from this book in a hobby level multi-user RPG I have written. My review of that book is attached below. Because I greatly appreciated the content of the 1st edition, I also bought the second edition. Basically, the second edition is the first edition updated for DirectX 9.0. The text and the code are practically verbatim with small changes here and there to account for changes in technology and probably minor improvements the author wanted to make from the first edition. The most obvious difference (aside from using DirectX 9.0), is that the first few chapters from the first edition have been removed. The discussion on how to design rpgs from a story line perspective, intro to C++ and a few other things were removed as well as the last chapter on marketing your game. Editorially I can see why they did that. It makes the book much more focused on the "meat" of programming an RPG using DirectX. Also, I personally barely paid any attention to those chapters in the first book anyway as I focused on the programming myself. However, I thought they added an element of style to the book that was quite nice, so I miss them a little. In summary, this book is pretty much the same as the first edition in all of the important ways. Since I thought extremely highly of that book, I think extremely highly of this one too. ------------------------------------------------------------ Review of Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX 8.0 I had a specific objective in mind when I bought this book. I'm in the process of writing a hobby level multi-user RPG for me and maybe up to a hundred or so other players (not many hundreds or thousands). I have a solid background in C++, less so in DirectX. I've bought many books on game programming to help me with this process and to my surprise I've found this one simply amazing while most of the others I've found to be little more than expensive doorstops. :) Like all the books of this nature, I read it in very much a "pick and choose" manner, focusing on chapters I liked and extracted code from the CD for places where it helped me. I found the material covered and, more importantly, the code representation of that material to be extremely helpful in my coding process. I believe the tips and code the book provides (which all compile and provide very reasonable and practical applications for the ideas demonstrated) saved me (literally) hundreds of hours of research (not to mention trial and error) finding methods that work and work well and covered all of the core components I would want in a role-playing game. It covered multi-player over the internet, 2d and 3d rendering in directX, how to construct combat, spells, chat, and inventory systems and a variety of other items. Naturally, I had to do a lot of customization to make the game do what I wanted it to do and I h

I had a specific objective in mind when I bought this book. I'm in the process of writing a hobby level multi-user RPG for me and maybe up to a hundred or so other players (not many hundreds or thousands). I have a solid background in C++, less so in DirectX. I've bought many books on game programing to help me with this process and to my surprise I've found this one simply amazing while most of the others I've found to be little more than expensive doorstops. :) Like all the books of this nature, I read it in very much a "pick and choose" manner, focussing on chapters I liked and extracted code from the CD for places where it helped me. I found the material covered and, more importantly, the code representation of that material to be extremely helpful in my coding process. I believe the tips and code the book provides (which all compile and provide very reasonable and practical applications for the ideas demonstrated) saved me (literally) hundreds of hours of research (not to mention trial and error) finding methods that work and work well and covered all of the core componenets I would want in a role-playing game. It covered multi-player over the internet, 2d and 3d rendering in directX, how to construct combat, spells, chat, and inventory systems and a variety of other items. Naturally, I had to do a lot of customization to make the game do what I wanted it to do and I had to merge several of the ideas discussed into my own framework (for example the multi player network section is covered more or less stand alone where clearly other parts of the book need to be integrated with it to form a real game), but the result is I have a basic game up and running in a fraction of the time it would have otherwise taken, which no other book has ever really brought me.

This is a great book for anybody thinking about programming RPGs... And even if your not going to I would at least try to take a peak at the book and think about buying it.First off the book assumes that the reader has a through knowledge of C programming and that you have some experience with coding. And has, like the rest of the series, quite a few pages devoted to C++... (The best thing with this book is you actually make a rpg game following the book and it's practices!) The first part of the book covers what is role-playing, desiging role-playing games and some basic story-telling. The Jim covers basic programming with C++ as well as some engine architecture that is different from most other books - ex. Tricks from the Windows Game Programming Gurus. It introduces concepts like state managers, process managers and data packages - some great stuff for programming big games. The third part covers basic DirectGraphics concepts ("a whirlwind tour", according to the author). The code does the job really well and the concepts are well-explained.After that the book covers information about DirectInput and DirectSound, the chapter on DirectInput includes information on programming joysticks, and other information in the book includes: wrappers for Direct3D, DirectSound and DirectInput, and followed by that, octrees and quadtrees, 2d tile engines, mixed 2d/3d engine, collison detection and so on. The only problem I see is some of the real super newbies will see the book go at a fast rate... It has great explainations but he does move fast. And the author likes to leave out the obvious - so you have to pay attention in the beggining or you'll be turning pages back into the book to see whats up.Basicaly, pick up this book if you are starting DirectX, pick up the book if you plan on crreating RPG games. The book is great, you'll have a working RPG game after going through the book, you will learn alot about DirectX and storytelling at that! 5 Stars.