Customer Reviews

Infinite Game Universe: Mathematical Techniques (Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development)

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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Infinite Game Universe is based on a concept derived from the game Elite, of which I have happened to play extensively in my former gaming life. The overall idea behind this book is outstandingly stimulating, that being the use of mathematical equations in place of rampant memory use in order to create games with limitless dimensions of play.

Unfortunately, most of the actual specifics detailed in the book were yawners and I nodded off more than once trying to read this book. It had the flair of your typical college textbook. For example, a good 1/3 of the book is dedicated to writing and analyzing your own psuedorandom generators and I found this to be a good example of excess.

However, I am not actively trying to create an infinite game universe and it is quite reasonable that there are some people out there who would enjoy the specifics far more than I did. I picked up a couple cool ideas and the importance of the "infinite game universe" concept was emphasized by the very existence of this book! It is almost worth adding to your shelf as a reminder that there are patterns in this world that can be represented in better ways than 80 Megs of disk space. (Remind me to mail my copy to Bill Gates one of these days.) And, this concept has quite a future in the embedded world where resources will be quite limited for a new wave of interactive media & games.

Overall, I enjoyed some examples in the book and did not consider this to be a poor use of money. And I applaud the author for detailing the physics of the "Infinite Game Universe" because if more programmers considered these methods, we'd all have a little more space on our hard drive and games that provided a lifetime of adventuresome play!

I was interested in the book based on its title, which is very pertinent to both my professional and academic interests. A procedurally generated universe is a powerful (but not a very new) concept.

Anyway, aside from being a reminder (as another reviewer put it) that this field has potential and is growing, this book was overly verbose in describing vague, undetailed ideas. The examples were poor. There was never any "hard" math (one wonders how it got in the title). Most of the ideas were no-brainers. I felt that many of the solutions that were presented, were solutions that many people would come up with on just a few minutes of pondering. After having read 2/3 of the book, I wanted to hurry and finish just to get it over with. I was not the least bit stimulated by the possibilities, as none were offered that I hadn't already thought of just daydreaming. In fact, the book is so dry, it tends to take the excitement out of the subject. Even the section on Fractals--which I looked forward to the most--was completely lacking.

In conclusion, I'd say that the important material could have been condensed into a thirty page paper on random number generation with some commentary on its application in video games.

The "universe simluation" view of game design draws on a diverse array of topics in computer science: random number sequences, cellular automata, neural networks, fractals, formal languages, scripting, object-oriented systems, physics, algorithms, data compression, artificial intelligence. While Thompson's book manages to touch on most of the above, no topic is explored or applied in any real depth, and the difficult prose hinders reading.

The text is full of off-hand references to the classic computer game "Elite" as an example of an infinite game universe, but awfully short on specifics. A few hours of web research into gaming sites would have filled in the blanks. Even more shocking is the omission of "Starflight"---a groundbreaking computer role-playing game that used a good number of techniques in this book (i.e. fractal terrain generation) to support hundreds of detailed, explorable planets and star systems, each with its own atmospheric conditions, mineral deposits, ancient ruins, and mysterious life-forms. All that crammed onto a 720K disk---surely of great interest to this book's audience. Why is there no coverage of this classic?

Likewise, I can't understand why the author provides an illustrated reference to "R-Type" --- the most predictable shoot-em-up game ever --- while not mentioning the massive, still-unequaled world-simulation that was "Ultima VII - The Black Gate."

What exposition remains is obscured by the awful writing style and distinct lack of mathematical rigor.

What should you read instead? I recommend "The Computational Beauty of Nature" for the math side, "The Official Book of Ultima" for the design philosophy; you can read up online about the relationship of object-oriented systems to simulations. For people who are thinking about game design, read up on Interactive Fiction and some of the old papers applying discrete maths to storyline, plot, character, environment. I've been planning for years to write a book on these types of games someday---perhaps it'll be sold on Amazon? :-)

This is a good book for game programmers who are just starting to realize that the need a background in mathematics to reach the next level in the careers.

Other audiences will not really like the book. Mathematicians wanting to know more about gaming or graphic techniques will find the math lacking. There is not enough action to keep game players from yawning. There is no cut and paste code for second rate programmers to plagerize. Only a narrow audience will really find the book of interest.

I am really happy to see this book on the shelves. Game programming is a multi-billion dollar industry. Many of the people got their start in the business through graphic arts, or simply banging on computers without much training. This book shows how programmers need to evolve from just plain code monkeys to true thinkers.

It was interesting to see what subjects the author found to be important. He concentrated a great deal on random number generation, seeding, plot development, basic oop and finally he touched on fractals. Unfortunately, the mathematics in the book was pretty much obvious stuff. The book would not serve well as a reference, nor as a text book.

If you are in the game programming business, I would recommend this book. Others will not receive much value from it.

I am participating in programming a tool for automated design, and I identified some ideas in the preface that I already had. After reading that, I really wanted to see what were someone else's thoughts on a subject that really interests me. But the preface happens to be the only interesting part of the book.

Random number generation is an evident first step, but you better read some good book about it (there are plenty). The methods outlined here are just not good enough.

Every chapter tries to develop a theory and then explain it with an example. The theory is usually a long explanation of a simple idea, without adding any interesting information to it. Then the examples are often too simple or don't have anything to do with the subject.

There are many pages devoted to fractals, and very little information in them. The same thing happens with random name generation, music generation, fractal terrains... These are all really cool subjects, but go learn about them somewhere else.

The chapters are totally disconnected, and the purpose of the book is not clear. If it's a book about techniques for making games with automatically generated worlds, the book should focus on how to develop such a thing, using the development of the program as a guideline for connecting the parts. If the book is about math, it's just the worst math book I have read (and I have read quite a few).

The author should learn how to write and should also organize his ideas better. Using a Mandelbrot image to modify probabilities of pairs of letters is just nonsense. The ghosts in Pac-Man are not good examples of self-similar behaviour, and have nothing to do with fractals. And there are many more examples of "thinkos" in this book.

Spend your money in a better book.

I bought this book hoping for information on fractals, random number theory, compression, etc. Very disappointed. He seemed to lean heavily on a few particular sources that I didn't think were very strong. (For example, I can't imagine anyone covering random numbers without mentioning Knuth's book which is considered one of the authorities on the matter.)

Basically, this book spends a lot of time describing to you in generalities the basic principles, without actually giving any compelling examples. In many cases, he teases you by talking about what *could* be done with the types of techniques he is describing, and you're like, "all right, now we're getting interesting." But then he never actually gets around to the meat of the matter. He talked a lot about fractals in general, but never any good examples of how to actually make fractals. Or in the chapter "probabilitity as a compression technique" (which is only 5 pages long, btw) he discussed RLE encoding, which is an excellent trivial example. The only problem is, that's where he stopped - I can't believe he didn't discuss ADPCM encoding, for example.

It's not that this is a beginner, book, either. There really just isn't that much material at any level. I'm still trying to figure out where all the pages went. Basically, a disappointment. Lots of fluff. Not much math, which is what the title would lead you to believe this book is all about.

I got this book because the title sounded like just the sort of good algorithm design discussion I was interested in. Sadly, the book doesn't live up to expectations. By a long shot.

I got the book before reviews were up on this site, unfortunately... Listen to these reviewers!

The book provides a lot of interesting discussion and pontification without a lot of specifics or advanced concepts. The techniques described are nowhere near cutting-edge. It honestly reminds me of listening to one of my CS professors rambling after a long day.

The upside is that it contains a lot of interesting ideas and could be a good introductory text for programmers not already experienced in advanced algorithms, real-world game design, or higher mathematics. Unfortunately, that's a small audience, I suspect.

is in the infinite. This is an excellent book covering mainly the theoretical aspects of games that require infinite to near infinite spaces, objects, names, behaviors, what have you. I say mainly theoretical because although there is some code coverage it is up to you as the programmer to implement Guy's theories and his theories cover a vast array of subjects and possibilities for application. And herein lies the five star rating. This looks to be one of those books that is overlooked in its time because it doesn't provide that immediate gratification of copying code and seeing a 500 level demo of interactive graphics pop up instantaneously. This book leads the mind into the possibilities of the future and allows the reader to see without being lead by the nose. Think first, think second, think third, implement fourth. To fully appreciate this book, you will need either a math background or at least the interest in the math that truly underlies all of computer science. Although this isn't required and the concepts can be understood without it, knowing computer-related math or having an interest in it will greatly increase the depth of understanding to master the topics presented.