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Game Programming for Teens (Paperback)

~ (Author) "In other words, programming allows you to make your computer do whatever you want it to do..." (more)
Key Phrases: scrolling variable, poi ntl, mid handle, Blitz Basic, End Function, End Type (more...)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)


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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

If you’re interested in jumping into the exciting world of game programming, then you’ve found the perfect book! "Game Programming for Teens" doesn’t expect you to have any experience with programming. You’ll learn everything you need to know along the way. You’ll use Blitz Basic, an easy-to-learn programming language that the author will teach you. As you work your way through the book, you’ll learn everything you need to know to create a complete game. Graphics, animation, sound and music, and artificial intelligence are all covered. By the end of the book, you will have created your very first computer game! Game programming doesn’t have to be difficult. With a copy of this book and your own curiosity, you’re off to the perfect start.


About the Author

Maneesh Sethi is a high school student in California. He has worked with Blitz Basic for the past two years. Maneesh is also the founder of Standard Design, a website design company, and team leader of Cold Vector Games, a game programming team.

Product Details

  • Reading level: Young Adult
  • Paperback: 392 pages
  • Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (May 15, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1592000681
  • ISBN-13: 978-1592000685
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #693,513 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #81 in  Books > Teens > Science & Technology > Computers

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Maneesh Sethi
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56 Reviews
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 (7)
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (56 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Kudos from another author, April 9, 2004
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.

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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great for parents as well as teens, May 23, 2004
By A Customer
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!

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A good starting point, May 3, 2006
Short: I am writing this review from the perspective of a high school student who started with Blitz, went on to a more advanced language, and is now revisiting Blitz again.

Long: When I first picked up the book, I was a high school student with no prior programming experience. I had written code before, but it was HTML so I didn't actually write programs.

I abandoned Blitz for a while when I finally got the chance to take a programming class(C++) in school and have recently returned and thus revisited the book to brush up. I took this oppertunity to write a review here.

C++ is a more advanced, powerful, and widely used language but I still use Blitz to make simple games because it's hard to get good graphics in a C++ compiler without costly graphics pacakges to go with it.

Opinion

Short: The book is very intuitive and well written. The author does a very good job at explaining things and the book is very well paced. When going to a more advanced language I was helped significantly by the concepts I learned when using Blitz. I would highly recommend this book.

Long: When I first got this book, I thought programming would be a daunting task. This book goes through it very well and has a nice pace that keeps you from getting overwhelmed. The author writes very clearly and is very good at explaining concepts. This is a great book to get started with programming.

When I dropped this because I started programming in C++, I found transfering languages easier than I had hoped. I learned a lot of basic concepts in Blitz and was able to take many of them over into C++.

For a short time, the only real changes that I experienced were different syntax between the two languages and some other basic priciples (such as library functions) not used in Blitz. By the time I got to a point where most of the material I was learning had no equivalent in BLitz, I had been using C++ long enough not have any problems.

Conclusion

Short: It's a great, well written introductory book for those looking to program for fun or those who want to go further but need a good starting point.

Long: When I got this book, my purpose was to get something to introduce me into programming in a simple, easy to understand manner. I am happy to say that it works very well for this purpose. The Blitz language will not carry you especially far but if you are in it for fun or are just looking for a starting point, this will work very well. I still program with it myself a bit even after learning a more advanced language.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome for beginners
This book is great for teens and young adults. I knew HTML (I am 10 years old) when I first got the book, so it was easy for me. Read more
Published 4 months ago by sandy

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots to like, could be better, pre-teens need much guidance through it
I bought this for my 10 year old son - not quite a teenager, but it is very difficult to find books and programming languages to introduce programming to kids who have experience... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Henry Flurry

5.0 out of 5 stars An accompanying cd-rom offers source code from examples in the book, plus art and music libraries
If you enjoy playing video games and want to learn how to create them, then the third updated edition of GAME PROGRAMMING FOR TEENS is for you. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Midwest Book Review

3.0 out of 5 stars Very good but needs more.
I believe this is a good book for people new to the Blitzmax language; however there is still a few things that is not covered in this book leaving, the reader to find there own... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Richard Torres

2.0 out of 5 stars quite surprised by other review scores...
I really didn't like this book. It was written oddly, and doesn't teach you that much (which may have more to do with the fact that the programming language taught is really... Read more
Published on March 9, 2007 by corn_fest

2.0 out of 5 stars You have to pay to play
This book is ok if you are not serious about game programming. My biggest issue is that you cannot run the programs from the book on another computer. Read more
Published on November 12, 2006 by William Jackson

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice book. Read it. NOW!!!
This was my very first game programming book. Eversince I have read 2 other books about programming, and am working on two more. Read more
Published on October 14, 2006 by Sheryl J. Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars A great starting point
Perspective

Short: I am writing this review from the perspective of a high school student who started with Blitz, went on to a more advanced language, and is now... Read more
Published on May 3, 2006 by Geoff

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, Deceptive Marketing
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. Read more
Published on February 28, 2006 by Paul Wake

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for 2D Programming, Not for 3D Game Programming
Being that I am 25 years old, I have learned a lot for game programming from this book. Also, I own Blitz 3D, which is perhaps Blitz's best language. Read more
Published on January 22, 2006 by Robert A. Morin

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