Customer Reviews

Game Programming All in One

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I tend to shy away from game programming books with the phrase "All in One." And not without good reason. Most of them are utter garbage. They simply try to do too much. Take the 1st edition of GPAIO for example--it was just awful. It had diagrams on the wrong page, tons of errors, etc. And it wastes way too much time going through the technical stuff. Very little on game programming.

Not so with this book.

While there is some technical stuff, the author utilizes it almost instantaneously to form a simple tank game along the way. Towards the end of the book, he covers horizontal scrolling (i.e., Super Mario Bros.) and vertical scrolling (i.e., 1942). While neither example is a complete game, both really explain the mechanics well enough that making a game of either type should be fairly easy.

I was a bit reluctant to buy the book because it uses Allegro, rather than the more mainstream options of DirectX and OpenGL. But I really think Allegro was a great choice. It allows him to focus on the meaty stuff, you know, actual game programming stuff. I have way too many books that waste upwards of 150 pages on setting up a window with DirectX.

My only criticism is that the book is more for hobbyists than professionals, but then again I have never seen nor heard of any such book. Anyone who wants to program games, albeit simple games should definitely check this book out.

As for the reviewer who gave GPAIO one star, I'm really doubtful that s/he is serious. But if so, my advice to you is this: If you can't get Allegro up and running, then you shouldn't be programming games. It's that simple. Really. It's not any harder or easier to set up than DX, OpenGL or even SDL.

This book is intended for the ABSOLUTE BEGINNER. It assumes the reader has a very basic knowledge of C, and understands the basics of pointers, arrays and structs. No experience with other multimedia library/GUI toolkit/etc required, although it helps.

From that point on, it will get you up and running really fast; in quite a few chapters this book will cover simple 2D game programming, teaching all the basics neededed for programming more complex games. Trough the use of Allegro library, the topics of handling input (keyboard, mice, joystick) and output (sound, graphics, sprites) are covered effectively.

The later chapters, however, did not appeal to me at all; they deal with horizontal scrolling (classic mario-like games) and vertical scrolling (1942-like shoot'em up's), AI, multithreading... which is very cool stuff, but I don't think the approach chosen is very effective.

It is read REALLY fast however, with very big fonts, and clear and neat writing. It dissapointed me a bit because although it seemed very nicely edited, one of the examples was misplaced.

If you plan to work under linux, the code will work (most of the time), but compiling can become somewhat cumbersome. Under windows, it works fine.

To wrap up, I quite liked what the author says about gaming and game design in general, and teaches very effectively what he intends, having the "All In One" covered; but examples are overall too simplistic or superficial.

I'm rating four out of five because I expect a book on the subject to be a little more high-end; however, if you are new to programming in general, this book will prove quite helpful. And, Allegro can take you really far (it even has the bonus of being open source!).

P.S.: as a side note, reading other reviews, the second edition looks better than third.

I had to figure out by my self how to compile the codes under linux. The book doesn't go over compiling under Linux, other than using kdevelop.



1 star: Readability. It was easy to read. While I found some typos, it wasn't such a big deal.

2 star: There aren't many books out there on Allegro Library, and that deserves some recognition.

2 star: I own another book written by Jonathan S. Harbor, which was also a good read. Beginning JAVA ... I forget the title but it was a JAVA book. Anyways, the 2 stars are for the author, and his experience in game programming.

It's a nice book to have.

There's a new version of Allegro coming out (5.x series already in Beta) that's going to make this book somewhat obsolete.

The author's forums are okay. There is a good section on how to get your IDE and compiler setup, but because the book is old it doesn't cover the latest tools or operating systems.

If you still want to buy then I'd recommend getting the book used and downloading the free tools yourself.

It's not really the book's fault that it is outdated, though, so for what it is - it's a good book. Check out the author's other (newer) listings first.

As a working software professional, I can tell you this book is great for anyone who wants to get into game development, but doesn't know where to begin. You should feel competent programming in C or C++ before you purchase this book, but if you do, you will find this an excellent read.

Why? The free cross-platform Allegro library that the book covers works well with C/C++ on a number of platforms, from Windows to Linux to Mac OS X. This approach is definitely more effective in building games for different platforms (DirectX is solely for Microsoft platforms, and requires a lot of Win32 boilerplate), and Harbour acknowledges this.

Is the book for beginners? Not quite. As mentioned before, Harbour assumes you have a working knowledge of C/C++ (not just the syntax, but practical use of the language), so this really is written with a programmer in mind. Before long though, the experienced programmer will be up and running with the library, and able to create great things with some imagination. As well, the book covers some more advanced topics like multithreading, both in timers and synchronized multithreading using pthread.

Rest assured, the journey you will have with this book will be smooth and fun. The book goes from setting up the compilers (mainly Windows), through basic Allegro, to graphic modes, bitmaps/sprites, I/O, sound, timing... all while building some small games in the process with clear language. The book even goes over some of the business and design side of game development, not just the programming. The packaged CD comes with the free Dev-C++ IDE (good for beginners, more experienced developers will likely prefer VC++ or GCC/MinGW) and the Allegro library version 4.2 built for several compilers, as well as the source code from the book (and built EXEs as well). Everything is here to get you started from whatever skill level you consider yourself to be on. It really is All in One.

My only complaints about the book are that the book goes over timers, but doesn't clearly explain how to set up a sharp 60FPS game loop for the beginner. You may need to figure that out for yourself. Also, it relies a bit on Mappy, a free tile tool, for tiles/tiled backgrounds. Neither are major complaints, as this is still one of the best development books I've ever had the pleasure to read.

Great job Jonathan Harbour, you wrote a great book for the C and C++ developer. I highly recommend this. For the serious C/C++ developer interested in game programming, get this book. If you're not proficient in C or C++ yet, I suggest picking up the excellent Beginning C++ through Game Programming by Dawson from the same publisher (or another C or C++ book), and get this when you feel confident in either C or C++. Either way, this book is a must-have for an independent game developer.

I was a Computer Science major in college, and wanted to get into game programming. Never did it before, and had a lot of difficulty just being able to create a programming environment so that I could do basic C graphics programming.

Well, I found this book, and wrote a complete version of Tetris from scratch, and then a complete version of Pac-Man, which includes all the original ghost algorithm logic. I've also written numerous other graphics programs and games (Arkanoid, asteroids, etc) using it and all the tools included with the book.

It is very easy to read and follow. Great examples. All the sample code works. It gives you all the basic skills to program anything to do with 2D graphics. The Allegro toolset is quite powerful.

Anyway, I highly recommend it as a novice.

The reason I gave this book 2 stars is because the Allegro library which it uses is incompatible with current operating systems. Yes, I recognize that there are many different workarounds that may or may not solve your problem, but you are not going to want to do that. This book is focused on the novice programmer...supposedly...so the set up for the development environment should be relatively easy. It isn't due to aforementioned issues. The code does not compile easily and then it won't even run.

The pluses of this book are that Jonathan S. Harbour has a writing style that is easy to follow and not too verbose (he doesn't use too big of words). I bought this book because I thought his other book C++ through game programming (or something like that) was easy to follow, though perhaps a bit too low level for anyone with any experience at all in programming.

The author maintains a website to help with any bugs or issues, but instead of trying to actually fix them he just pawns the excuses off onto Microsoft, and says it's all there fault for not wanting to conform their operating system to a rarely if ever used game library.

In the end Iwould recomend getting the book on beggining directx 10 from the same publisher, though different author (Wendy something I believe). And stay away from the allegro library.

This is a excellent book on game programming. Harbour does a good job staying on topic. He doesn't spend any time trying to teach you C programming or anything like that. Harbour takes a measured approach and tries to teach you the Allegro API which is easier to use over straight Direct X.

After chapter 8 or so I think I got maybe one program to compile. I tried it on 2 different operating systems. On Windows 7 I got the library to install no problems (I did use an outside tutorial provided to me plus an IDE). On mac I had to install a third party version of allegro 4.2.2 for 10.5.8, using textedit and terminal to compile (personal choice). So it is possible. It seems to be installed correctly. Problem is certain allegro functions don't seem to want to cooperate with the underlying libraries. As far as teaching style goes its ok in some parts its comes off as too conversational, (i.e. unnecessarily wordy) but I recognize some people like and need that. It does use unconventional coding practices some of which is looked down upon in modern programming practice (#pragma once). A lot of troubleshooting with programs. I wouldn't touch allegro if you don't have a solid C++ background (intro class/book doesn't cut it). Allegro is difficult to install. If you really want to use allegro: hang in there, there is a work around documented for just about every problem, but you have to be willing to dig, as its old and some of it is simply around for legacy. The online community is very supportive. Honestly, I found the online tutorials to be more useful than this book. Its ok for a required text but if this is something you're pursuing on your own look elsewhere first.

I bought this book recentily and it is amazing. Its a good book for learning and teaching game programming.

I am a programming teacher at Brazil and I got this book to help me at my classes. And its helping a lot.


Best regards, Andre.