where i try to answer your questions about game development

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

beginning game programming

Just got an email about game programming books, a very popular question I get:

Hey John, I've mailed you before but I doubt you remember; with that said, I love your games! Always have, always will. I've done a bit of game programming with some beginner's languages like GML and many versions of BASIC, but I'd really like to learn C. I have one question: I've pretty much learned all there is to make console applications, which is all I can find tutorials for. Where can I get some info on basic graphics programming? Just drawing/manipulating bitmaps or pixels, something like that.

Thanks!

-Jake


Here's what I would recommend with just a quick search on Amazon: Beginning Game Programming by Michael Morrison.

Now, I haven't had to read a game programming book in about 22 years but this one seems pretty solid with good reviews. Sure, some of the reviews might be by the guy's mom and friends but how else can you tell if it's good unless you try it yourself?

I'm sure some of the readers here can recommend other great books - that's what this section is for!

21 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I recommend to visit at www.libsdl.org and check out the list of tutorials found at there. SDL is really easy-to-use library for graphics, sounds and other stuff.

5:07 AM

 
Blogger warlordQ said...

Heres a great link for beginers...

http://www.fastgraph.com/diana.html

9:34 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I started learning how to program games in C (back in 1999) the most helpful books were by Andre' LaMothe. I don't think he has released anything new in a while (except the Prima/Premier series he's overseeing, but those are written by other authors). There is however a second edition of Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus still available (released 2002).

From what I remember, Andre' focuses too much on Windows programming + DirectX (in the beginning at least), so while I do recommend checking out the book, I would skip over the Win32 and DX stuff and simply use the game programming material coupled with a good DX wrapper like SDL or Allegro.

3:31 PM

 
Blogger iZ said...

in my humble opinion,the "Beginning Game Programming"is really not bad.i've never read the English version so i doubt that i maybe missed something,but it's ok enough for a beginner to get in.(mines is the Chinese version,any Chinese fans or newbie out there could check it on the dangdang.com or somewhere else.)

12:25 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm the programmer/designer from Kevlar Games and I prefer using the Allegro library. It's a really great programming library for indie games and it's also open source!

P.S. While your at it, I'd suggest downloading a copy of Dev-C++.

3:59 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've had this book for about a month and I already got to the end. It's really usefull especially if you want to know how to write game engines for Windows.

I'd give it a 4 out of 5!

7:15 PM

 
Anonymous tweakman said...

I have been through the Beginning Game Programming book by Michael Morrison and it is an excellent beginners book for learning graphics game programming. It helps you put together a nice little 2D game engine that hides all of the Windows programming so you can concentrate on your game logic. I have been working on a small game using that engine.

Other books I would suggest are: Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus 2nd Edition by Andre LaMothe, Game Programming All in One 2nd Edition by Jonathan S. Harbour, and Beginning C++ Game Programming by Michael Dawson.

If you want a beginners project to help on, you can help me with a game or two. No deadlines, no pressure, just a great learning experience. Check out my site at http://www.jnbutler.com for details and contact info.

9:01 AM

 
Blogger daveangel said...

I own and read this book and if you want to build a game engine using the win32api it'll show you how. Just make sure you C++ is up to snuff since it's used throughout the book.

3:33 PM

 
Blogger bj0ern said...

Haha, cool. The picture on the cover reminds me of 'Kickstart', an old Commodore C16 game :)

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I'm the programmer/designer from Kevlar Games and I prefer using the Allegro library. It's a really great programming library for indie games and it's also open source!

P.S. While your at it, I'd suggest downloading a copy of Dev-C++."

I really don't want to start an IDE war, but Dev-C++ hasn't been updated in forever and isn't even written in the language it is meant to be used for (it's written in Delphi).

I use Code::Blocks for compiling and use Notepad++ for writing code.

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