Customer Reviews

Macromedia Director Game Development: From Concept to Creation (Miscellaneous)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book assumes you already know how to code in lingo. I am experienced in using Director but don't know anything about lingo. It has a verry small appendix that hardly explanes what the code does. You can however read the code frome the games it includes but that is the hardest way to learn. If you already are familiar with lingo, then you don't even need this book. The book says "to get this effect, type in this code.." but it doesn't say why. It says if you need to know why, look up the lingo in the appendix. Problem is, only one or two words in that whole code you just typed are in the apendix. This boolk made me more confused than ever.

There are two kinds of reviews for this book: the ones written by people who paid $$ to find out how much it sucked, and the ones written by shills for Jamsa and Epic. See if you can figure out which ones are which! Speaking as someone who didn't write this review because my boss told me to, I can say in all honesty that this may be the most worthless book I have ever seen. Period. Whether you're a Director pro, somewhat experienced, or even a rank beginner, this book garuntees to be a 100% waste of your time and money. Run away. Now!

the games are cool, but the book doesn't explain how to create them from scratch - it instead has you fill in certain portions, often times leaving out comments on more important code. and sooooo much verbage!

I just bought this book and have been working through it the past few days. This book is an excellent source of examples of complete Lingo code. It contains 15 games on the CD with all of the source code, and the finished working programs. The real value is not the book itself, but the CD with the source code! All the book does is give a brief overview of each game. This book is excellent for intermediate Lingo programmers like myself, not beginners looking to learn Lingo from scratch. Advanced programmers will probably find it boring. If you already know the basics of Lingo coding then this is an excellent book to see working examples of code. I learn best by seeing how other programmers assemble projects, seeing their code in action, and evaluating the finished product. Not reading theories and snippets of code in some 800 page book. Therein lies the value of this book to me. It doesn't try to educate you on Lingo, it cuts right to the code.

I think the other reviewers did not give this book a fair shake. It delivers exactly what it states, and I am not a shill working for the authors, just a beginning Lingo programmer looking for working examples from which to learn. If you want to see basic Lingo game programming in action this is an excellent book. If you still need to learn Lingo basics or are looking for advanced Lingo concepts then buy another book.

Flash 5 - Director Games: Where will they go next. Granted the books by epic software and Kris Jamsa are a bit more expensive than the rest of the books, but WELL WORTH IT. I bought the book so that I may see and learn how others are using their creativity to do games. Glad I bought this book. It has a great deal of code and actually walks you through them. Sometimes it can get difficult to follow, but it makes me just that much better when I get through it. I have already been able to sell the concept to a client and used one of the games from the book, changed some of the graphics, just a little of the code and I now have a finished piece that I can sell. Awesome job, awesome book and awesome games.

This book is not geared for the starters, but trust me, you will learn a great deal from this book if you are just starting out. I have been working with Macromedia products for a couple of years and am glad I added these two books to my arsenal.

This book really exceeds what it means to be stupid. How can something so hyped, be so lame. That is the only real thing you can get from this book, vaporware.

This book not only explains how to use Director in a conversational, learn-by-doing style, but it also gives you the complete source files for all 15 of the arcade games! And once you have the source, you can pick the games apart, see how they work, build your own, or even just modify the existing games and have a finished product in a couple of hours! You don't even have to worry about them bugging you for copying the games cuz they're actually your property once you buy the book. Oh yeah, and there's a couple of Lingo references that come in pretty handy when you're working in Director and don't feel like reading a lot of crap. All in all, I'd say you should buy this book if you wanna learn practical programming in Director.