Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Alien Attack, Wee-controlled Car, InnerTube, Oh My!, June 16, 2009
I have been an avid fan of the DotNetRocks podcast since the beginning and when Brian Peek and Dan Fernandez went on the show [...] to talk about their Coding4Fun book, I felt their enthusiasm and decided to get the book. I am technical architect and "code for work" every day, so why did I get so excited about the book? Who has not wanted to write a game or build some fun gizmo? Well, whether you are coding for work or for fun, the creative projects presented by Brian and Dan are sure to make you want to pick your keyboard and mouse and get going. Going through the first chapter and building the Alien Attack game, I got a chance to discover the patterns in use in most game as well as learn to use the Microsoft XNA gaming platform. The authors introduce the different techniques in layers so you can see the game evolve as you go. You will get some good chuckles out of playing (and even losing at) your own game, guaranteed! If you're more eager to tackle hardware and software projects, the Wee-controller or electronic board based projects should pique your interest. Even though I have not built all projects (at least not yet), I very much enjoy browsing through the chapter and see how each project is structured. Whether you want to feed the inner geek, or inner coder in you, or whether you've always wanted to code for fun for a change but don't know what to code, then this book is for you! Just go and code-4-fun!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, fun projects, February 16, 2009
Well written, but not for the newbie. These projects assume you have some previous coding knowledge, which is great for those of us that do. Some of the projects (the Wiimote ones, namely) do require several pieces of additional equipment, which can be expensive, but it is well worth it to write some cool little programs to use them for purposes other than the Wii! If you are a bored Coder, pick up this book!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Something fun for everyone., February 7, 2009
There are many of us who began programming because it was fun and exciting. Being a developer as a career, however, can sometimes suck the life out of us with the day to day routines we go through. This book is a great way to cure that problem because you can put your skills to use, and do something fun at the same time without it ever feeling like a chore.
There are 3 basic areas of focus in the book: Gaming, Web projects, and hardware projects. The projects differ from each other, so you never feel like you're doing the same thing twice. It's also great because you don't have to read the book in order; just find something that interests you, and code away. The chapters contain summaries in the beginning to let you know approximately how long the project will take, the software you'll need before starting, and any costs involved (usually for hardware chapters).
Since I've always been curious about learning XNA, I'd have to say the Alien Attack chapter was my favorite. It's very easy to follow, and the great thing is that it walks you step-by-step so that you can build the project as you're reading, and learn how everything works. It covers topics like creating the sprites, animation, interaction with other sprites, and user input. It even shows you how to run the code on the XBOX 360 and the Zune without doing any code changes.
A few other really cool chapters were the chapters involving the Wiimote, the PeerCast application, and the animated holiday lights. If you've ever played around with the wiimote, you probably know that it brings a new way to interact with games. By allowing the wiimote to be used on a PC, the possibilities are endless. The authors show some exciting ways to make use of this, and teach you enough so that you can use the wiimote in your own applications.
In my opinion, there's really something fun for everyone in this book. I highly recommend it. After reading it and working through the examples, you'll be able to apply what you've learned and create some of your own exciting projects.
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