Question about the book

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    • Question about the book

      [size=2]I am looking for a book I can use as a single (not needing any other on the subject of game development (for now)). I found this by accident my questions is what kind of games will / should I be able to make in 2D and/or 3D?

      Sprite-based RPG's, Tetris, regular FPS's, RTS's?

      or is it a all-around books that make it possible to make any game?

      I am aiming my first experiences with game development to the 2D world. Mainly to make a Tetris clone, heard it was a good start and I like Tetris. Will this book give me enough experience in game development to create a clone?

      One last question does this book use plain DX9? or will I need to download some library like SDL is available for OpenGL. I am looking for a book that teaches the "real deal" and not libraries like QT, Allegro, SDL etc. I do not know if there is anything similar available for DirectX but I think you understand where I am trying to take the question.

      English is not my mother tongue but I hope you understand what I try to ask :)

      I read that there where some issues with LUA in VS08, I have that will the book still be usable if I skip LUA?

      The book I wish buy is a book that only uses the official DirectX9 SDK and no special libraries for C++ except for the STL Library. The headers here that is
      msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a7tkse1h(VS.80).aspx will this book be for me then? I read something about C# is this the main language of the book?

      Best regards a potential buyer![/size]

      The post was edited 5 times, last by FrozenSnake ().

    • This book does a 3d game, but it also provides a great overview of game programming and game development in general.

      It uses DirectX, but it doesn't go into 2d stuff too much. for that, you may want LaMothe's "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus," but that focuses on the mechanics of writing a 2d game in DirectX, rather than the best way to write a game all around (a game is more than just graphics, after all).

      You may want to consider both books, even though you insisted on just one. Or stick with Game Coding Complete, and pick up the 2d stuff with online tutorials.

      Of course, I got LaMothe's book a long time ago, so I don't know if its the best or whatever. I'm sure the others here can be more specific.
      -Larrik Jaerico

      www.LarrikJ.com
    • The book you mention is a bit out of date it's from 2002.
      I have the book too and it uses DX7, I wish to use DX9 with my Tetris as it will be part of the school I will go to in a few years, they will probably use DX11+ then but DX9 will be a good place to start before I walk over to DX10+ when I buy win7 :)
    • Well, I remember is as the reason that they use DX7 is because DirectDraw was dropped in DX8. The book is newer than DX7, but you use the DX7 interface (still available in DX9) for the 2d stuff.

      The modern way is to use the 3d engine for 2d stuff these days, but that doesn't make for a great starting point to do it from scratch.
      -Larrik Jaerico

      www.LarrikJ.com
    • Larrik OMG you suggest LaMothe????

      :)

      His book is what motivated me to write my first one, I thought it was so, well, not as good as I'd hoped.

      Anyway - on to the questions.

      A 2D game is just a 3D game without one of the dimensions - certainly a system that is about 1000% easier to learn from a "how to I draw stuff" point of view, but all the other problems are still there: how you read game data, how to grab user input, how to detect collisions, how to update your game, how to draw your game state and how tdo you keep everything organized.

      I humbly sumbit to you that Game Coding Complete, while seeming complicated for a 2D game, really contains all the things you need to know.

      On what types of games can you make in 2D and 3D - my best suggestion is just look at history - you can really do all genres except the ones that require one graphical display over another. If you remember Pitfall on the old Atari 2600, that was surely an action platformer in 2D, but so is Mushroom Men for the Wii, which was 3D. Changing from 2D to 3D really changes the experience - but you can even see how a 3D engine can make a great side scroller like Cloning Clyde on Xbox Live Arcade.

      Not much of an answer really, I probably confused you more! Sorry about that.

      If you want to make Tetris - the only thing I'd suggest you do is disable the physics system, and do your own, very simple collision system based on cell collision. A real collision system will be too unstable to do something like Tetris. When I say cell collision, I mean imagine your game grid divided into cells or squares, and just store a boolean (true or false) bit for which cells have a tetris block in them. Just implement a "LegalMove()" method that returns true if a block can move down, and draw the animation to move it. Since you can't stop a block halfway through its drop, you don't have to worry about detecting mid-drop collisions anyway.

      You don't need to worry about LUA if you don't want to - you can write all your game code in C++ if you wish and worry about scripting systems later.

      The book uses C++ for most of the book - C# is only touched on in one chapter when the book discusses game editors and game development tools. You won't need that for a game as simple as Tetris.

      I hope that helps!
      Mr.Mike
      Author, Programmer, Brewer, Patriot