Synopses & Reviews
Welcome to "Game Coding Complete, Third Edition," the newest edition of the essential, hands-on guide to developing commercial-quality games. Written by a veteran game programmer, the book examines the entire game development process and all the unique challenges associated with creating a game. An excellent introduction to game architecture, you'll explore all the major subsystems of modern game engines and learn professional techniques used in actual games. This third edition features expanded content and coverage of the latest and most exciting new game programming techniques including AI, multiprogramming, working with scripting languages such as Lua, and writing C# tools like your level editor. All the code and examples presented have been tested and used in commercial video games, and the book is full of invaluable best practices, professional tips and tricks, and cautionary advice.
About the Author
Mike McShaffry, a.k.a. ?Mr. Mike,? started programming games as soon as he could tap a keyboard. After graduating from the University of Houston, he worked for Warren Spector and Richard Garriott, a.k.a. ?Lord British,? at Origin Systems on Martian Dreams, Ultima VII:The Black Gate, Ultima VIII: Pagan, Ultima IX: Ascension, and Ultima Online. Seven years later he formed his first company, Tornado Alley. Mike later accepted a position at Glass Eye Entertainment, working for his friend Monty Kerr, where he produced Microsoft Casino. Ten months later, Monty asked Mike and his newly assembled team to start their own company called Compulsive Development, which would work exclusively with Microsoft on casual casino and card games. Mike served as the Head of Studio, and together with the rest of the Compulsive folks, produced three more casual titles for Microsoft until August 2002. Compulsive was acquired by Glass Eye Entertainment to continue work on Glass Eye?s growing online casual games business. Mike was later recruited to start an Austin studio for Maryland-based Breakaway Games. Mike is currently self-employed, helping teams build a positive, creative and energetic environment so they can do what they do best - make great games.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Unique World of Game Programming; Chapter 2: What's in a Game?; Chapter 3: Coding Tidbits and Style That Saved My Butt; Chapter 4: Building Your Game; Chapter 5: Game Initialization; Chapter 6: Controlling the Main Loop; Chapter 7: Loading and Caching Game Data; Chapter 8: Programming Input Devices; Chapter 9: User Interface Programming; Chapter 10: LUA Scripting; Chapter 11: Game Events and Scripting Languages; Chapter 12: Game Audio; Chapter 13: 3D Basics; Chapter 14: 3D Scenes; Chapter 15: Collision and Simple Physics; Chapter 16: Network Programming for Multiplayer Games; Chapter 17: Simple AI; Chapter 18: Debugging Your Game; Chapter 19: A Game of Teapot Wars!; Chapter 20: Writing a Simple Game Editor in C#; Chapter 21: Driving to the Finish