Customer Reviews

Practical Java Game Programming (Charles River Media Game Development)

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

 

 

Be careful of your expectations here. This is NOT a 'how to' book with 100+s pages of code samples. This is not a book in the 'java cookbook' series.

What this IS is a book that describes the +/- of the java language and the JVM and talks about PERFORMANCE issues extensively. The author goes out of his way to talk about the issues surrounding the use of Hotspot VM/JIT and benchmarks with math/IO, etc.

The last 1/2 of the book (maybe less) deals with some high-level understanding of rendering and collision detection.

Topics include bindings to OpenGL (jogl), JNI (it's cost vs. benefits in it's use), performance of java.math and where it can be optimized, some simple treatment of sockets vs. datagram/multicast sockets, audio integration, proper use and performance with direct bytebuffers vs. java arrays (java.io/java.nio), also a little on GC collection algorithms. Also a treatment of java's +/- as a scripting language, as well as a good look at rendering and collisions.

Overall a very interesting techical look at the VM and performance challenges that java as a GAME language faces.

The author makes it clear that good java games can be written but good PERFORMANCE games takes an understanding of the JVM and proper code architecture that takes into account java's strengths (as oppsed to it's weaknesses).

I would recommend this a a great starting point for someone interested in making good java games or just learning about java performance issues. If you want a 'cookbook' you'll need to look elsewhere.

I have been waiting for this book for a while as the publishing date slipped a few times. Having recieved the book, I wish I never bought it. To start with 2/3 of the book is about java, optimisation, a poor section on JDBC and some networking stuff that you can find anywhere else. The remaining of the book is a general discussion of Java and the last chapter (Ch 15) is about a simple 3d engine (jist 3D)which is pretty incomplete. The book has many incomplete code snippets and no games in sight which is surprising when the authors have been around the game development forums for such a long time.
The book seems to be a poor attempt in discussing games development in Java. More like an attempt to cash in the market demand.
If you are buying this book to learn about Java and 3D, then there are better books such as -Developing Games in Java- by Brackeen which has good explanations about various aspect of game development in java.
My advice is that dont waste your money on this book!

This appears to have been written by a Java evangelist who loves to talk shop about the ins & outs of Java programming. Unfortunately, this is supposed to be about game programming, and in that regard, I found nothing practical about it. A single chapter on 2D graphics? This book goes into great depth providing the mathematics of 3D collision detection (chapter 16), but doesn't get any further in the graphics department than drawing a few static (non-animated) Actors (i.e. "sprites").

The focus of this book is off-point from the start, in my opinion. The chapters toward the end on 3D graphics provide insufficient information to build a 3D game, and yet the material up to that point is insufficient to build a 2D game. What you end up with in the end is a lot of knowledge about Java, but not a single practical program, let alone game.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the CD includes .java and .class files, but no explanation on what to do with them (the back cover does say this is a Beginning-Intermediate book, not Advanced).

The Java Developer's Kit comes with much better demos than you will find in this book WITH convenient .html files with code to run the applets, which is something these authors should have included.

Hi. First off, id like to state that I am by no means a professional programmer. I am a high school junior, who is currently working through AP computer science. I picked this book up on a trip as reading material, and it has been very informative. The code samples are extremely well written, and easy for me to follow. My only major critisim is that the printed code samples have several typos in them, but if you look through the code included on the cd, then you'll have no problems. Overall, I thought it was well worth the $36.00 I paid for it.

Overall I find this a good book. It has interesting discussion and introduction of several topics that interest me. However it is flawed with typos and misstatements (sometimes contradicted in the next sentence). It's also fairly out of date now (JDK 1.5 comments are somewhat out of date now and JOAL comments are a bit out of date).

Pick it up at a bargain price (under $5) and I do recommend it as a good book on JOAL and several other topics of value for Java programming (not just games).

I also found this book to be disappointing. I would also agree that the author sees it necessary to discuss the techniques involved rather than talk about a technique and then present the code for that technique.
I bought this book on the basis that it was going to be "practical" programming, i.e techniques and code, but all i found was a long winded discussion on the topic. The author does show that he has a great knowledge of java game programming but it is poorly presented to the intermediate java programmer, and not recommendable to beginners.

Do not buy this book if you think your going to be getting involved with code, rather, buy it if you do not know what techniques are used in java game programming, and wish to hear a discussion on those techniques.

My personal experience with this book was very different than the previous reviewer. I am a Java programmer who has been looking to get into game programming, but didn't have a reference to start from. I thought that this book very much lived up to its title. It's focused on getting the reader in tune with what is possible with Java in the current iteration. It then follows the step by step foundation for getting a game made and running. The book moves from the basic architecture into 2d game programming and then on to more advanced concepts like sound programming, database development and even JNI (Java Native Interface) coverage (though that thought scares me as a Java purist). Before getting the book, I had found very limited documentation on the Java libraries for gaming online and this book showed me the basics of using each one of them in turn. The samples were very good and they provided me a basis from which to build my work. As of now, I have a small, but playable version of a 2D Platformer, built right out of the book.

My only criticism of the book is that it has alot of assumptions when you go to the 3d components. The explanation is very solid, but my personal background in 3D Math was very limited when I started with the book. There is coverage on 3d foundations, but it could take a whole book just to adequetly cover that topic. I continue to practice that as I go.

Overall, a good selection. I would be interested in a sequel to cover more advanced topics.

I waited long for this book and I'm happy that it focus on the Java Games and Game Technologies Projects, like jogl and joal. The book discusses the new features of jdk1.4 out of the view of a game developer and even mentions the upcoming features of jdk1.5. If you are a member of the net.java.games community you will find many chapters about these projects. The code presented in this book lags of quality in some places and seems to be coded in a hurry, but is still good enough to get the point out of it. I suggest this book to all who want to use the Java Games and Game Technologies Projects!!! If you want to learn how to implement a whole game and game architecture chose another book.