Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB .NET [Paperback]

David Weller (Author), Alexandre Santos Lobao (Author), Ellen Hatton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2004 | Series: Books for Professionals by Professionals

This highly-anticipated title provides a clear introduction to game programming for VB .NET programmers! Microsoft insiders have written an easy-to-read guide, so you can start programming games quickly. This book even includes an introduction to Managed DirectX9, and other advanced .NET features, like animation and sounds.

Code examples are actually complete games, and include .Nettrix , .Netterpillars, River Pla.NET, Magic KindergarteN., D-iNfEcT, Nettrix II (for the Pocket PC), and a version of the classic game, Spacewars.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sometime around 1974, David Weller discovered a coin-operated Pong game in a pizza parlor in Sacramento, California, and was instantly hooked on computer games. A few years later, he was introduced to the world of programming by his godfather, who let him use his Radio Shack TRS-80 computer to learn about programming in BASIC. David's first program was a simple dice game that graphically displayed the die face (he still has the first version he originally wrote on paper). He quickly outgrew BASIC, though, and soon discovered the amazing speed you could get by writing video games in assembly language. He spent the remainder of his high school years getting bad grades, but writing cool software, none of which made him any money. He spent the next 10 years in the military, learning details about computer systems and software development. Shortly after he left the military, David was offered a job to help build the Space Station Training Facility for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). From that point on, he merrily spent time working on visual simulation and virtual reality applications. He made the odd shift into multitier IT application development during the Internet boom, ultimately landing inside of Microsoft as a technical evangelist, where he spends time playing with all sorts of new technology and merrily saying under his breath, "I can't believe people pay me to have this much fun!"

Alexandre Lobão is a passionate man. His first passion was reading, starting with large books—Mark Twain, Érico Veríssimo, Jules Verne, Monteiro Lobato, Alexandre Dumas, and others—when he was 7. At age 12, he discovered his next two passions: playing and creating games (by that time on his first Apple computer), and writing.

Many years later—he's about forty now—these passions still flourish. Now he's a teacher of academic game development courses, has written four books on the topic, and has participated in Brazilian gamse development contests, both as a contestant and as a judge. He has also written short story books, children's books, and young adult books, and in 2008 he released his first romance, The Name of the Eagle, currently available only in Portuguese. And, of course, he still loves to read, some favorite authors being Ken Follett and Paulo Coelho.

His ultimate passions—starting in 1995 and still burning—are his wife, Waléria, and his kids, Natália and Rafael. Alexandre believes that lives needs passion to be lived entirely, and hopes that this book helps light this passion in readers' hearts. You can find his work at AlexandreLobao.com.

Ellen Hatton is a computer science undergraduate at Edinburgh University. She was exposed to computers at a very early age and has been fascinated with them ever since. Her first experience of computer games was playing Dread Dragon Doom, at which she quickly excelled at the age of 5. She's been hooked on games ever since.

Ellen is not only interested in computers. She skis frequently, among other sports, and enjoys general student life in the bustling Scottish capital, Edinburgh. As her choice of degree suggests, Ellen still finds computers very interesting and is constantly looking for new challenges.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Apress (September 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590594010
• ISBN-13: 978-1590594018
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,438,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars a poor attempt at a quick buck, shame on Apress!, June 3, 2005

By 

Christopher G. Williams - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB .NET (Paperback)

My biggest complaint with VB.NET game programming books so far (and I've read a few) has been that they either: A) try to teach elementary VB.NET using game flavored examples (but nothing about actual game development) or B) try to take existing game programming material and shoe-horn it into a VB.NET book. Sadly this book falls squarely into the second category (so far).

It's quite obvious that ALL of the sample code was originally written in C#. No big deal, it's easy enough to convert. However, if you aren't a VB.NET guy, don't you dare write a freaking book with VB.NET in the title. There are more differences between VB.NET and C# than just syntax!! For the love of god, 85% of the code samples (encountered so far) do NOT work as printed in the book. Some have glaring C# syntax still in them, but only in places... often sharing a line with VB.NET syntax. The tech editor should be drawn and quartered, on TV.

To make matters worse, the main author seems somewhat condescending (arrogant?) for someone who's never actually published a game in his/her life, ever (and had to have TWO other people write the book with him... neither of whom have ever published a game either.) This is an actual quote, immediately after some collision detection code that DOES NOT work as printed... If you think this is too much math, this is probably the place where you should take this book back and take up something less mathematically demanding, like nuclear physics! Ok... seriously? That comment would be a lot more impressive if your code ACTUALLY WORKED!

So far I have nothing positive to say about this book, so let me see... ok well, the girl on the back cover is kinda cute (allegedly one of the authors, although I have no idea which sections are written by whom... is that good or bad? You tell me.) Oh yeah, and the price I paid was 40% off, although sadly I still feel ripped off!

FWIW, I did eventually get the collision detection code to work on paper, although NO explanation is made for why the algorithm handles things a certain way, and the reader is told to perform a simple Google search for more info (I kid you not!!). I'm guessing this is because they don't actually know why the code they "borrowed" (from the net?) did things that way either.

At this point, I'm almost considering this book as a possible alternative energy source. I can't believe anyone at one of my favorite publishers actually read this book prior to printing it and selling it for $50 a copy. By the time you rip out the index, table of contents, foreward, introduction, recommended reading and 'about the author' section... it's barely 350 pages. Yes... I know it's not about page count, but when quality is already out the window, what other metric is there?

I'm not going to tell you the name of this book or the publisher (yet), because even though I've managed to work up this much bile and stomach acid over it, I'm only on page 35. God help me, I hope it gets better quickly.

It's funny, every truly good tech book I read makes me less inclined to try writing my own. This book, however, has convinced me that I still have a pretty good chance at getting published.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Waste Your Money!, March 27, 2005

By 

crashclay - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB .NET (Paperback)

This book may present some theoretical views for beginner level game programming, but do not expect to learn the correct syntax for VB.NET. Actually if you purchase the same authors book for programming in C# you'll find they have the same first chapter (that's as far as I looked). This book was obviously a lazy attempt for these people to make a quick buck. Unfortunately they wait until the end of the book to let you know:
"Most of the example games leave much room for improvement. Even when we looked back on them after finishing each chapter, we would sometimes look at parts of the code and think, "We can't believe we wrote that." Even worse, some of the things we told you aren't always true." pg 348
While I was trying to complete the exercises in this book I spent more time with my nose in other books so I could learn the correct way to do it. Do yourself a favor get a different book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Errors, January 8, 2005

By 

Sean Boots "bootron" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB .NET (Paperback)

This book is an effective game programming theory lesson if you are a capable VB.NET Programmer who can figure out how to correct the numerous coding mistakes made by the authors. There are countless examples where they've accidentally dropped C# code blocks into the mix instead of VB, and many other occasions where they change variable names that should have remained the same. If you aren't well-versed in VB, I'd caution you against buying it...you're probably not going to be able to make it through without encountering errors that end your session in frustration.

The book was still useful to me, as I needed to learn the theory behind game programming more than I needed the actual code, but it was still annoying to have had to figure out why the provided examples weren't functioning properly.