iPhone Game Development: Developing 2D & 3D games in Objective-C (Animal Guide) [Paperback]

Paul Zirkle (Author), Joe Hogue (Author)

Book Description

Series: Animal Guide | Publication Date: November 13, 2009

What do you need to know to create a game for the iPhone? Even if you've already built some iPhone applications, developing games using iPhone's gestural interface and limited screen layout requires new skills. With iPhone Game Development, you get everything from game development basics and iPhone programming fundamentals to guidelines for dealing with special graphics and audio needs, creating in-game physics, and much more.

Loaded with descriptive examples and clear explanations, this book helps you learn the technical design issues particular to the iPhone and iPod Touch, and suggests ways to maximize performance in different types of games. You also get plug-in classes to compensate for the areas where the iPhone's game programming support is weak.

• Learn how to develop iPhone games that provide engaging user experiences
• Become familiar with Objective-C and the Xcode suite of tools
• Learn what it takes to adapt the iPhone interface to games
• Create a robust, scalable framework for a game app
• Understand the requirements for implementing 2D and 3D graphics
• Learn how to add music and audio effects, as well as menus and controls
• Get instructions for publishing your game to the App Store

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Zirkle has five years of mobile game programming experience and is currently a Lead Mobile Programmer at Konami Digital Entertainment. He has worked on over 40 titles, including porting, re-writing and full development. Occasionally, Paul is called upon to give lectures on game development at the University of Southern California.

Joe Hogue has five years of mobile game programming experience. He worked with Paul at Konami and currently works for Electronic Arts as a Mobile Programmer. Joe has worked on over 40 titles as well, including porting, re-writes and full development. Joe has written an iPhone game that is currently being submitted to the iTunes AppStore.

Product Details

• Paperback: 258 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (November 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596159854
• ISBN-13: 978-0596159856
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #812,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Does Not Meet Up To Its Potential, November 19, 2009

By 

Innocente - See all my reviews

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This review is from: iPhone Game Development: Developing 2D & 3D games in Objective-C (Animal Guide) (Paperback)

Unfortunately, this book does not meet up to its potential. The main issues I have with it are the code examples and example applications.

* The book does NOT provide complete step-by-step walkthroughs of operations (although, they are generally 'good enough').

* The book does NOT contain complete listings of the project code text. This is a BIG problem.

* The source code is available on SourceForge, but it does NOT match the text in the book!!!

I have no clue why the persons modifying the files changed them so drastically.

So, be aware that there are serious issues regarding learning from this text. I can only hope that someone at O'Reilly sees the problem, and acts to fix it.

Edit : I have downgraded this book from two-star to one-star. The more I get into it the worse it gets. Typos. Coding errors. Misnamed classes, files, methods, member names; the list goes on. It is obvious that the authors of this book did NOT code the projects from the proofs they got from the publisher. It is unlikely that they even read the text of the code; some of the errors are so obvious that even a cursory read shows them up.

Edit #2 : It is now apparent to me that the authors of the Book and the Code are old C++ coders from way back. Anachronisms like 'Hungarian Notation' and other Microsoft C++ patterns are rampant. Misuse and misunderstanding of Objective-C and Cocoa Touch patterns and usages abound. You will learn a LOT of incorrect habits looking at this code and text. Beware.

You will spend more time trying to fix the errors in the book than you will spend understanding the concepts presented.

Get a different book on Game Engine Design and work your own iPhone compatible version from there.

It will be easier. A lot easier.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Frustrating Read..., March 7, 2010

By 

R. DiNicolas (Phoenix, Arizona USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: iPhone Game Development: Developing 2D & 3D games in Objective-C (Animal Guide) (Paperback)

I'm a pretty experienced developer (5 years web development in ruby, python, js & java), but new to objective-c. I got through "Programming in Objective-c 2.0" relatively easily. I'm new to drag and drop, gui driven programming so I was hoping the primer in interface builder would help out in that area. Turns out it didn't. In fact, I found it extremely frustrating. You really need a decent amount of experience with interface builder to follow the examples because the example steps are incomplete. There's a lot of "...and now, add this line to your code"... well, I've got 3 view controllers... which one exactly?

I understand the author expects the reader to use their brain, but I'd rather experiment after I get the example working. It's not good that after only 25 pages into the book, I was extremely frustrated. There wasn't a single moment when reading "Programming in Objective-c 2.0" where I didn't completely understand the concepts discussed. The author clearly states: "To get the most out of this book, you will need to have some programming knowledge." That's complete BS, you need a decent amount of xcode specific experience for this book.

I may come back to the book after I get some iphone specific experience. Right now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone starting off on this platform. To be honest, I'm not sure I want to invest any more time in this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Paradox, February 12, 2010

By 

Dr. Nim - See all my reviews

This review is from: iPhone Game Development: Developing 2D & 3D games in Objective-C (Animal Guide) (Paperback)

It's a paradoxical book that will probably only make sense to people that already understand the material. Sure, many of us can download the code, analyze it, put it in the context of the book, but that's what the $35 is, at least to some extent, supposed to prevent. A book IS about handholding, because it's efficient to have detailed narrative instruction. Moreover, good books HAVE been made for people just starting out. Don't build a castle on sand. Get something like "Beginning iPhone Development" by Mark and LaMarche and get a solid step-by-step foundation on the iPhone. Get any reasonable book on game design, for example "Learning XNA 3.0" by Reed, to learn in meticulous detail and code about game states, 3D, etc. [this last is a different platform, language, etc. - but it's a good book]. From there, delve into OpenGl ES. You'll probably get there quicker in the long run.