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DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming
 
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DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming [Paperback]

Jonathan S. Harbour (Author), Joshua R. Smith (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 7, 2006 1598632876 978-1598632873 2
Learn to write 2D and 3D games without any programming experience by harnessing the advanced 2D/3D graphics features of DarkBasic Professional. This easy-to-use language handles the entire game engine for you, so you are free to focus on designing and playing your own games. Written for beginners with no programming experience, DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming, Second Edition is a welcome change of pace from traditional game programming books. You won't need to spend time figuring out how the game engine works, but only what the game is supposed to do. You will be able to create self-contained executable games with the graphics and sound files stored inside the exe file. No DarkBasic runtime library is needed: compiled programs are self-contained and require only that DirectX is installed. Finally, a book for complete beginners who want to learn to write games!

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Customers buy this book with DarkBASIC Programming for the Absolute Beginner (No Experience Required (Course Technology)) $16.94

DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming + DarkBASIC Programming for the Absolute Beginner (No Experience Required (Course Technology))


Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Source code for the projects in this book may be downloaded from these book resource locations:
  • jharbour.com/forum (must create a free account first)

About the Author

Jon Harbour has been programming video games since the 1980s. His first video game system was an Atari 2600 which he played with disassembled on the floor of his room as a kid. He has written on languages and subjects that include: C++, C#, Basic, Java, DirectX, Allegro, Lua, DarkBasic, XNA Game Studio, Pocket PC, Nintendo GBA, and game console hacking. He is the author of Visual Basic Game Programming for Teens, 3rd Edition; Visual C# Game Programming for Teens; Beginning Game Programming, 3rd Edition; Multi-Threaded Game Engine Design and XNA Game Studio 4.0 for Xbox 360 Developers. Visit his blog and forum at jharbour.com.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 577 pages
  • Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 2 edition (September 7, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1598632876
  • ISBN-13: 978-1598632873
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #688,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan S. Harbour was born in Sacramento, CA, grew up in Redding, and now resides in the Phoenix area with his wife and four children. Now a freelance writer, he recently spent five years developing and facilitating the Bachelor and Master degree programs in game development at UAT (Tempe, AZ). His books cover many languages (C++, C#, VB, Basic, Lua, Python, Java), libraries (DirectX, Allegro, XNA), and hardware (GBA, Xbox, Xbox 360, cell phones).

For fun, he enjoys reading books on physics, cosmology, metaphysics, anthropology, and game development (of course) from authors such as S. Hawking, M. Kaku, H. Ross, A. George, C. Yarbro, with a personal library of over 500 books. He also enjoys bike riding, long hikes, and mind-expanding TV shows and movies of the futurist variety.

On a personal note, I wish there really was a Night Elf Mohawk character class.

 

Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming, 2nd Ed., May 14, 2007
This review is from: DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming (Paperback)
An invaluable resource for the aspiring game programmer, as a beginner's reference. This great book explains, simply, the needed utility programs to draw and animate your graphics, PLUS many well-written examples to help you in to right direction.

I found myself refering back to some of the Sprite-related chapters and some of the simple 3D examples for building some games.

I really think this book is a great asset for those of you who want to start programming games for the PC, but do not have any experience in programming. Even for me, I have a rather extensive programming background, but DarkBASIC Professional is not your father's BASIC from decades ago. This is one awesomely-powerful 2D and 3D game development environment is explained rather quickly, but succintly and never leaves you feeling lost or out-of-the-loop.

I've read other books that are supposed to teach you the programming language with examples, but they were filled with unfamiliar computer jargon and the examples were shoehorned into the book in what seemed an afterthought. Here in "DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming, 2nd Ed.", the examples were actually a refreshing resource that I still peruse.

I rated this book highly. There were some small ambiguities, but after reading the passage or paragraph over, I actually understood the methodology of the examples and their commands use. Extensively researched, "DBPro Game Programming, 2nd Ed." has taken graphic game development in a new direction: a genuinely creative one.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great 2D book, December 5, 2007
This review is from: DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming (Paperback)
This was a great book for starting game programming with Dark Basic Pro. I use this book all of the time when I am writing games. My only complaint is the 3D stuff. it seems a little rushed and I didn't see anything about 3d collision detection. I am not confident you could create a 3D game using this book exclusively. I would love to see a second volume to this book that was just 3D programming. However Hands On DarkBasic Pro - Volume 2 does just that so if your library included these two books I think you'd be set.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great book for intermediate coder, Good book for beginner., March 1, 2009
This review is from: DarkBASIC Pro Game Programming (Paperback)
If you are already an intermediate coder it is a great book, but if you just started from the very beginning the book could use some more detail. The examples are great. If it went into more detail on the code in the examples, and line for line went through what that code does, then it would be an awesome book.
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