Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a) a heavy iPhone user and game player, b) the founder and lead developer of an iPhone app development company currently producing games, and c) a reviewer of the book. I am the direct demographic targeted by this book, and I am the direct target demographic of the products which would be created using this book. I have also been involved in authoring / publishing before, so I have insight into how that process works. My purpose in this review is to give readers an objective review, from which they can make an educated decision on whether to buy or not.

In order to do that, while it is not the focus of this review, it would be a disservice to potential readers to let the other one-star review go unanswered. Opinion is fine. Unreasonable rants by anonymous posters taking issue with things that are at best petty, and at worse either bogus or unreasonable, and do nothing but damage the huge amount of work these obviously qualified authors have done to compile this information gleaned from their commercial game development experience. To the complaints:

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

ANSWER: So translated, the book's explanation of operations IS admittedly "good enough", it just wasn't the hand-holding this reader desired. Not surprising -- this is a 200 page book. The problem domain of game development could fill an entire library. The expectation should be as such, and the authors come right out on the first page of the book's Preface and deliver that expectation:

"Our goal was to write a book that can put iPhone game development in the reach of any programmer out there, in a format that suits both beginning and advanced game programmers...This book is not a five-year course on game programming technology."

Two words: Mission Accomplished.

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

ANSWER: Thank goodness for that. First, I'm not sure I've ever seen a technical book which put complete source code listings in the text. Second, if there were, I wouldn't buy it. I don't want 200 pages of print-bound source code. The purpose of a book from knowledgeable authors is to glean their experience and insight, not add bound source code to my bookshelf. If this is your goal, Google is your friend, there's plenty of source code out there. If you want gaming expertise, consult experienced authors by reading their book.

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

ANSWER: That's a funny thing which happens when authors update source code for the benefit of their readers. They get new and improved source code.

Ok, enough of addressing that, here's the real meat. You are in for a LO-O-O-ONG journey in understanding gaming programming if you are planning on doing this via reading source code listings. I guarantee you a 200 page book full of source code isn't going to get you very far. Gaming isn't OpenGL. It isn't Objective-C. It isn't artwork. And it is quite a different organization of code and program flow than the typical information processing type of iPhone application. What it is, is a different mindset, a different organization of resource processing, and a different organization of program flow.

Here are some key points of this book:

* This book introduces the reader to the logical breakdown of common game engine components. What IS a gaming engine, and what are its parts? A thorough explanation is contained.

* What does a gaming framework look like? How is that gaming engine and its components realized through an overarching framework, and what does each part need to address?

* How do the needs of game engines for 2D games differ from game engines for 3D games?

* What are some key implications which affect your design?

* Finally, all of the above are discussed in the context of the design of a sample game, from which relevant source code snippets are in print and explained in the book, and are supplemented by downloadable source code (which is exactly what I as a reader expect).

Quite honestly, if this book had NO source code in it, I'd still buy it, because I'm not seeking copy & paste. Command-C / Command-V isn't what I'm looking for. The value of this book is leaving knowing how to build my own gaming engine, with guidance from experts who have been down that road before.

So prospective readers, make your decision. My recommendation: buy the book -- if you are trying to move forward with your understanding of iPhone game development, this will definitely put you in the right headspace. If you decide not to, fair enough. You can buy it in the form of my company's iPhone games when they hit the iTunes App Store soon, thanks in part by the guidance provided in this book.

Cheers...

As the other reviews state - this book is so full of errors it is completely useless. Do not waste your time! Two evenings of frustration are enough for me... I'm looking for something else to learn from now...

I became increasingly distraught about the purchase of this book when I started reading the pages long list of typos that the customer is expected to correct manually included in the source code for the example code. Really? Speaking to programmers who are familiar with the process of debugging before shipping this comes off as insulting. The downloadable source files do not match the examples in the book, not even in names (for the first one anyways). It's completely unclear what the authors are referring to, wether the reader is supposed to create a new project from scratch or use the source files. The source files, do not compile. There is nothing functional about the contents of this book. I didn't buy a technical reference to learn from correcting the mistakes written by its authors. I know some other reader found the exercise highly instructive but when I buy a product I expect it to be finalized, not in an intermediary stage of development.

I read somewhere that the authors are not even comfortable with objective C and it sure seems that way given how easily they'll lswitch to other programming languages. In other words: ripoff, and a heavy blow to O'reailly's reputation as far as I'm concerned. You wont see me buy any of their other books if those are the standards they hold themselves accountable to. I'm ditching this book because it's riddled with errors and I don't have time to correct them. I just lost $40 and I'm going to buy the next game development book which is probably written by somebody who actually has experience with objective C.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who just couldn't wait to get this book in the mail. I was so excited when it arrived that I immediately tore into it. And then I typed in the code in chapter 3... It doesn't work. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for publishing code that does not work! Yes, you can look at the errata and work it out, but that's not the point. There's good information in this book and you will take something away from reading it, but I give 1 star to any book that publishes code that doesn't run. It's like having spelling errors on your resume, it says that you're too lazy to run a spell checker. In this case the authors were too lazy to run their code.

Overall the book gets the job done, but the examples are not very well written. You have to guess at what the author really wants you to do in a lot areas. In the first chapter he tells you to modify classes that he hasn't even had you create yet! In other areas of the book he tells you to create classes but doesn't tell you what to choose for their subclass.

After suffering through the book though, I have made a lot of improvements in my game code.

This book was very helpful in conveying some crutiel concepts for game development! The section on setting up a solid game state and how to manage resources was excellent and will go along way in my coding.

The author jumps around in the first few chapters but pulls it all together nicely once you get half way through reading. This book is really not meant for beginners and you will likely be lost if you dont approach this book with prior object oriented programming, C++ and/or Objective-C experience.

My overall impression on the book is this: The book does lack code examples and expects you to download the code examples from the site, which i actually ended up liking because the book is a much faster read and i can review the code of my computer instead. There appears to be some inconsistencies with the code and the book and you can figure that out if you know what you are doing! If you are looking for a nice 2d engine to use in your own games, this book is a great help and will give you everything you need to start coding 2D games(after some experimenting). I'm very happy with this book and hope the author continues to write more game dev books! Only reason for 4 instead of 5 stars is the few errors/inconsistencies in the code examples from book vs online examples.

I had entered the following under the comments section of a previous and after the last 10 days of digging into code I thought I should use it to create a review.

I have to admit that I had serious misgivings about purchasing this book after reading the other reviews. One of my friends at work recommended it and I eventually downloaded the Kindle edition on my iPad. I thoroughly enjoyed the first 2 chapters. I've been working on a game design for a few weeks and was glad to see that some of my thoughts/designs were not far off. I allocated an entire day to get the framework described in Chapter 3 up and running. I read the chapter first then took a day off from work and dove in. It took a solid 9 hours to get things up and running. I still have a few glitches but for the most part the framework performs as expected. One thing I'll say - it forced me to learn a lot and dig deep into the code. The result is that I now have a reasonably good understanding of the design and I think I can take it and apply it for my needs. Pounding new knowledge into one's head is generally somewhat painful - but it's not necessarily a bad way to learn.

With that said, it would have been a bit easier if the examples and book code had matched up a bit more but I'm not to keen on complete listings eating up book space - still - getting the framework in chapter 3 to run was a challenge. Now that it's behind me I'll spend a few days documenting the model. I'll clean it up where it needs to be and change those items that will make it more aligned with what I have in mind. Then I'll dive into Chapter 4.

I'd rate the book with 4 stars (I originally thought only 3). As others have said, there are places in the text where the actual code doesn't match with the snippets in the book nor with the downloaded sourceforge examples. Mostly, I relied on other books that I have and the Apple documentation (or the framework H files) when I needed additional help. Working though this was like picking up someone's code at work and trying to figure out the design in preparation for a refactoring effort. Bottom line - it forced me to behave like I do at work when learning a new system.

Ok - About a week later now... I've down loaded the sourceforge code for Chapter 3 and it appears to be working fine. Stepping through with the debugger is well worth the time spent. Still have some issues with it displaying properly on an iPad but I'll figure that out as I get the time (which I've now done). I've started restructuring and documenting the relevant parts of the code that I find useful. The low-level portions with textures/fonts etc. helped get my old C-pointer skills dusted off. It was a painful experience but I believe I've finally got what I need from the text. Feel like I broke a couple of shovels whilst doing the digging.

Another week and a half have passed and I have used the sourceforge code to create a game framework. I've written routines to create random mazes and have added code that uses the accelerometer to let me "walk" an emu chick animation through the maze. Not perfect yet but I'll keep improving the base and documenting what I do.

Lke others who have commented I was initially frustrated when I started but I followed the author's advice and after stepping through the code with the debugger and adding my own documentation it's actually not bad and extremely interesting to see how this is all put together. Of course everyone learns at a different pace and a different way. Someone in a previous post suggested that this was probably not a beginner's book... could be. I have 15+ years of C & C++ experience in my background and I admit that has helped make the transition to Objective-C a bit easier. (I had done nothing with Objective-C until about three months ago.) My advice would be to keep going... There really are some interesting "code-nuggets' inside this framework.