Customer Reviews

Game Programming for Teens

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

In my opinion, there are three groups of enthusiasts in the "gamer" market: Game players who want to make their own games for fun; Programmers who take up game dev as a hobby or a diversion; and those aspiring to become professional game developers. I believe this book excels at catering to the first group, is intriguing to the second, and at least mildly interesting for the third. Reviewers in all three groups will therefore vary in their opinion of this book.

I co-authored "Beginner's Guide to DarkBasic...". In early 2002, we considered using BlitzBasic along with DarkBasic, but decided to focus on DarkBasic only, and tailored our book for the "extreme beginner," where it would be useful as a textbook in a "first programming course." I am glad because now there is this excellent BlitzBasic book too, and it nails the subject!

Blitz and DBPro seem to be strong competitors. What you should realize when considering this book is, do you have a compiler? Visual C++ and Visual Basic and other compilers are expensive! But tools like BlitzBasic give you a DirectX game engine AND a compiler in one package. While this could easily cost hundreds of dollars for something like Visual C++ and Torque, you get it all in one package, with an easy-to-use script language. With this book, you get a trial version of the compiler, so you won't need any additional software to get started.

A final point. Its the CONCEPTS that are important, not the language. Anyone who whines about a book not using C or C++ is immature and a novice in the extreme. Because any competent programmer can glean new knowledge from a book of any language and apply it to his/her own. Shoot, I have used Petzold as a reference when writing about Visual Basic.

Maneesh should be congratulated for having written a very accessible book for new programmers and anyone who wants to write their own games without a huge investment of time.

I am a software engineer and a parent of an 11-year-old, and I have been looking for a way to teach my son computer programming in a way that would be fun for him. I read this book cover-to-cover, and it's almost perfect for this purpose. I have no doubt that the book would be excellent for a self-starting teen to read on his or her own. But as a parent, this book is invaluable for the parent seeking short, fun, educational programming activities that will be a lot of fun for the learner (and the parent as well). Every kid loves games, and this book does a great job.

I would also recommend this book to an adult who wants to learn the basics of game programming. It's a pretty fast read, very easy to follow. I personally learned a lot from this book. I've been programming computers for 30 years, but I've never written a graphics-based game before, and this book efficiently and easily goes through all the techniques for creating good games very quickly. I think it would also be fairly easily followed by a teen or adult who has never programmed before.

The book uses Blitz Basic, which is optimized for writing computer games and seems to be much easier to use than Visual Basic (the computer language I first tried when teaching my child). A trial version of Blitz Basic is on the CD-ROM included with the book, and the full version (called BlitzPlus) can be purchased online if desired (but is not required). The CD-ROM also includes excellent example artwork, animations, and sounds for the games described in the book, which is a great way to get a teen or pre-teen into programming without getting bogged down with creating art and sounds from the start.

By the way, this book covers creating 2D games (like Pong, Space Invaders, that sort of thing). 3D games are (I am told) much more challenging, and are covered in other books. (Blitz Basic is for 2D games; for 3D games, there is a related programming language called Blitz3D.)

I have one important complaint about this book, which is why I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 stars. There are many errors in this book. It could have used more careful technical editing. For example, in the section on arrays, the author carefully explains how the indexes for a 30-element array range from 0 to 29, and cautions the reader not to try accessing element 30 (which is one past the end of the array), and then proceeds to give a sample program that makes exactly this mistake. There are several errors of this magnitude in the book, and at least a minor mistake every 3 or 4 pages. It's unfortunate, because these mistakes can be very confusing to a beginning programmer.

But having said that, I still very much recommend this book. It's a good one. Congratulations to the teenage author who wrote it, excellent job!

I have been wanting to get into game programming for as long as I can remember. I've learned C++ and it's syntax, but was always frustrated when it came time to try and write something with it. I could never get passed writing console applications, and trying to create even a simple program in windows took an absurd amout of time in my opinion, and I eventually gave up. I came across this book in borders (As I myself am a teen ;) ), and was almost swayed away from buying it becase it was based on a "lesser language" (BASIC, or more specifically, Blitz Basic). However after reading some of these reviews, along with still having a desire to create games, I bought the book.

I couldn't have been happier with my purchase.

The author, although only a teenage himself, is absolutely brilliant. I am in awe at how straightforward and clear his lessons are in the book. I was able to get throught the first 100 pages in less than 2 days, and now I can create practically any text-based game I want!

The Language the book is based on, BlitzBasic, is basically noting more than the BASIC language (Which you may have already guessed is just that, basic) with the ability to do many graphical-oriented jobs, among other things. This allows the programmer to work on the code for the game itself, rather than the tedious as extravagant code of graphics libraries, Windows objects, ect.

Like a previous reviewer said, this book really gives you the feeling "Yes, I can do this" when the idea of a programming project comes to mind. I actally have a new-found confidence in my programming abilities, and plan on tackling C++ again once I have mastered BlitzBasic.

By the way, more information on the BlitzBasic program can be found at www.blitzbasic.com. I am already very impressed, and plan on buying the full version.

If you are looking to get started in programming, games or otherwise, teen or not, BUY THIS BOOK!

If you're already experienced in programming, and looking for a fun and easy way to get started in game progamming, BUY THIS BOOK!

If you're disgruntled with programming games in other languages and looking for an easier method, BUY THIS BOOK!

I find some of the reviews quite interesting, since they judge the book based on their opinion of BlitzBasic. Firstly, let me assure you that I have learned a "real" language - I've been a professional software developer for 12 years (C/C++/Delphi/C#).

As far as the book goes it is very well written and is aimed at the beginner programmer using BlitzBasic (not Blitz3D but you can still use it). That's it, that's all there is to the book. I still found it useful, however, in quickly picking up BlitzBasic (mostly the language) which allowed me to write 2D games after a day (okay, I've been doing that for years with DX/OpenGL but I'm still impressed that I can write Pong in less than 10 minutes).

Why would I use Blitz instead of DirectX/Direct3D/OpenGL? Actually, I use DirectX - I mainly use Blitz for prototyping but I'm finding that for simple to fairly sophisticated things it's all that is needed. For hobbiests and shareware/single member teams Blitz is an ideal way to actually finish something.

So, before you knock the book or Blitz - read the book from cover to cover and learn Blitz inside and out, you may be surprised at how much you can do with it. Oh, and get a good IDE - I personally like Protean.

The reviews for the first edition of this book, and its software, were very positive. I bought it for my kids shortly after the second edition came out. This edition of the book is useful, but the software--supposedly the key to making the book work, since it is supposed to allow you to actually design games as you go along--is advertised on the back of the book as being unlimited, and it's not unlimited. It's a demo that expires after several uses. Supposedly there's an unlimited version on the author's web site; good luck finding it.

Followup: I'm told the URL for the software is at www.maneeshsethi.com/BlitzPlusDemo.exe but I haven't used it yet to see if it's completely unlimited, or just has more uses.

If you want to learn to program games, from space shooters to spies, this book is for you. Other books are just to complex, and the languages they teach are total crap for beginners. I tried a book on C++. What the heck? It takes like 10 lines to print "hello world" on the screen. Here, Meneesh teaches you the easy Blitz Basic, simple and, duh, basic. This book is for the learner that actually wants to learn and not spend a week figuring out one line in a program. EASY!!!!! This is probably the number one book that's ever taught me anything. I learned a TON!! This isn't just for teens to. I'm not a teen. In two years I will be. But heck!! A six year old will understand this!!
This is also really fun. Space shooters, block games, pongs.
Dude!! I could make an RPG!! Scratch that. An MMORPG!! This book helped me chose my carreer!! I'm gonna be an Computer Engineer when I grow up!!
This book is probably the best beginner programming book on the market!! If you want to learn, and have fun, get
Game Programming for Teens by Meneesh Sethi. This ROCKS!!!

Nate W.

The idiot that gave this book a one star and screams that you should learn a "real" programming language is a total moron and misses the point entirely. This book is not about teaching you program languages like C/C++ or VB .net or how to make $100K a year. It is meant to teach you the basics of programming in a fun way by using games as examples. If you have no experience and pick up a book on C++ or .Net or Java, etc. you will quickly become overwhelmed, you will lose your interest and quit. This author prevents that from happening to you!!

Get this book, learn the basics, have fun and use this inexpensive book to help you decide if you want to spend a lot more money pursuing your dream. Hey...maybe you have no goal but you want to learn and get some knowledge while having fun...this is the book!!!

When I read this book I learned a lot about game programming and I'm planning to buy more books on it. It teaches you a lot about the Blitz BASIC language. I was able to create my own game within three days after I had finished reading this book! If you're interested in the world of game programming, this is the book that'll get you started!

Don't let the title of this book fool you. It is not just for TEENS. It is written so a teen could understand it, but I have been in programming for over 18 years now, and I learned a good deal from this wonderful book. The author presents the book in a humorous manner to break things up and not stoic like most books on game programming I have read. This book works great for the beginner even someone with no past programming experience. The author starts you out with the basics and builds it up from there. By the time you have completed the book you have completed some games as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn the basics of game programming. Also, I emailed the author and had a response in less than 2 hours, that is what I call service.

This is a great book for any beginner. Within one week, i had made my first arcade game! This is a great beginners book for anyone who wants to learn to make their own game. This book expects you to come on with ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE AT ALL!
This book presents you with a complete game within the first 10 pages, and shows you over the course of the book how everything works.
It shows you every function and every line of code step by step.

Awesome book!