Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required (Second Edition) (Game Development Series) [Paperback]

Luke Ahearn (Author), Clayton E Crooks (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584502231 | ISBN-13: 978-1584502234 | Publication Date: June 2002 | Edition: 2nd

Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required, Second Edition teaches aspiring game developers how to create their own computer games without programming skills, and provides an in-depth understanding of how the game design process works. Using hands-on tutorials and "drag-and-drop" game engines, readers learn to make and modify their own interactive 2D and 3D computer games, create models, and modify existing games. The book uses development tools like The Games Factory, The PIE 3D Game Creation System, gmax, 3D GameMaker, Milkshape 3D, GameMaker, and other cutting-edge software. Limited-use versions or demos of these development tools are located on the accompanying CD-ROM, or may be easily downloaded from Web sites. This is a great way to learn the fundamentals of game design and game creation: no programming skills required!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ahearn is a professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School. He also is the Art Director/Development Consultant on The Army Game Project.

Clayton E. Crooks II (Knoxville, TN) is a partner in Advanced Information Systems, a consulting company specializing in custom hardware and software solutions for education, small business, and government entities. His articles have appeared in Dr. Dobbs, and he is the author of Awesome Game Creation 2/E.

Product Details

• Paperback: 601 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 2nd edition (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584502231
• ISBN-13: 978-1584502234
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,235,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Game Creation - Not Awesome, January 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required (Second Edition) (Game Development Series) (Paperback)

The book is fine - but don't buy the book for the CD. The entire CD is almost all trial software. The only full versions are very old, buggy, and a few of them won't install on Windows XP.

The book is more a tutorial of the trial software included on the CD than anything else. If your looking for a way to create your first game ever and don't care to go farther than that - this is the book. If your looking for a road to a 'good' game - then go get something else.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good reference, fun product if you are creative, June 26, 2003

By 

Harold McFarland (Florida) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required (Second Edition) (Game Development Series) (Paperback)

Now in its second edition "Awesome Game Creation" is a complete course in computer game creation. The first chapters cover the basics of graphics and sound creation, manipulation, and editing. This is followed by a somewhat nostalgic chapter on the history of game development and the various genres of games. Finally, the last of the foundational information is supplied in the chapter on game designing elements.

With that background firmly in mind, the authors take you on what is basically a visual tour of game development history. First you start out making simple two-dimensional games with simple graphics and move from there up to making three-dimensional games with advanced polygon graphics.

Some of the software supplied with the book are complete versions, some allow you to create a fully functional game but don't allow you to make a game you can distribute, and others are thirty-day demo versions of the software.

Besides basic image editors and sound editors, the supplied software includes game creation engines and commercial game editors. The game creation software includes Game Maker, Games Factory, Pie 3D Game Creation System, and 3D Gamemaker. Other software includes GMax to modify commercial games, MilkShape 3D polygon modeler, and Paint Shop Pro.

How awesome of a game can you create with the knowledge gained from this book? Well that is actually a function of the creativity of the game creator. Even with the best software you can't create a truly awesome game if you have limited creative ability. On the other hand, I have seen creative people make amazing games with far more simplistic software than this. This is a recommended book for anyone with more of a creative spirit than a knowledge of programming.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It [is not good], March 2, 2003

By 

"[e-mail]" (Hilliard, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required (Second Edition) (Game Development Series) (Paperback)

The reason why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 is because it did a good job of taking you step by step through GameMaker 4. But like all things produced by the computer industry, quality control was lacking.

First, the version of GameMaker that is on the CD didn't hve one of the files you needed for the exercise in chapter 7. I was able to get it off the book's web site.

Second, in the exercise in chapter 8, you build a simple asteroids game. The problem is, the book never goes into how to set the game up to actually fire a shot from the space ship. Therefore you can not shoot at the asteroids, all they do is just bounce around on the screen.

That was enough for me. Chapters 1-6 just go through items like "Elements of Designing a Game" (ch5) and "The History of Game Developement" (ch4), so I just skimmed through those to get to the hands on stuff.

That is all I have read so far, and will ever. In the end, game creation is very difficult. If you want to produce a game you are going to have to learn DirectX and C++, and that is where I am going to spend my time from now on. The idea behind GameMaker is that there is a short cut. In my opinion, if you were to spend the same amount of time with DirectX and C++ as you would figuring out this book (and the GameMaker engine that comes with it) you would have a much better game, and in the long run I think you would spend less time.

Advice to hobbiest game creators. If all you want to do is create a 2D game. Setting up the DirectX environment for just that is really quite easy. You only need a few chapters from the the big thick books on DirectX. It is only when you go 3D that things become complex.

The reason why I bought this book was to see if I could save some developement time by using something like GameMaker. All I want to do is create a 2D strategy game. By going back to creating the DirectX environment myself, I know I will have much more control over the environment, get better graphics, and future revisions to the game will be easier.