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The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners 1st Corrected ed., Corr. 4th printing Edition

by Jacob Habgood (Author), Mark Overmars (Author), Phil Wilson (Foreword)

4.1 261 ratings

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The Game Makers Apprentice shows you how to create nine exciting games using the wildly popular Game Maker game creation tool. This book covers a range of genres, including action, adventure, and puzzle games complete with professional quality sound effects and visuals. It discusses game design theory and features practical examples of how this can be applied to developing games that are more fun to play.

Game Maker allows games to be created using a simple drag-and-drop interface, so you don’t need to have any prior coding experience. It includes an optional programming language for adding advanced features to your games, when you feel ready to do so. You can obtain more information by visiting book.gamemaker.nl.

The authors include the creator of the Game Maker tool and a former professional game programmer, so you’ll glean understanding from their expertise. The book also includes supplementary materials (on Apress.com) containing Game Maker software and all of the game projects that are created in the book—plus a host of professional-quality graphics and sound effects that you can use in your own games.

Review

From the reviews:

"The desire to create computer games attracts many young people to computing. This book meets the needs of this group of readers and students very well. It is also a fine introduction to the making of computer games for the experienced software developer who always wondered how games were made. … There are excellent software development lessons that can be learned using this book … . the book provides a superb introduction to programming as well as to game construction." (Anthony J. Duben, ACM Computing Reviews, Vol. 49 (5), May, 2008)

About the Author

Jacob's career in the games industry spans fourteen years, but he has been programming games as an amateur and professional now for a quarter of a century. During this time he has worked on over a dozen published games for all the major console platforms, including as the lead programmer of the cult British game, Hogs of War. He has programmed, designed and project-managed titles for publishers like Gremlin, Infogrames, Atari, Disney and Konami and he truly knows the meaning of the word "crunch".
Somehow he also found time to study a Ph.D. in the psychology of learning and has a passion for most things that connect video games and learning (including a whole lot of research involving zombies: zombiedivision.co.uk). This passion also extends to teaching game development, which he practices in his position as Senior Lecturer in Game Development at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.

ISBN-10

1590596153
ISBN-13

978-1590596159
Edition

1st Corrected ed., Corr. 4th printing
Publisher

Apress
Publication date

July 10, 2006
Language

English
Dimensions

7 x 0.7 x 9.9 inches
Print length

336 pages
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Apress; 1st Corrected ed., Corr. 4th printing edition (July 10, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1590596153
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590596159
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.94 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.7 x 9.9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #138,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #24 in Computer & Video Game Design
- #61 in Game Programming
- #156 in Software Development (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.1 261 ratings

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About the authors

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Mark H. Overmars
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Jacob Habgood
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Jacob is a Senior Lecturer in Game Development at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK, and has spent all of his professional and academic life developing videogames. He started writing games on the ZX Spectrum at the age of 10 and had his first shareware game published on the Commodore Amiga at the age of 18. He took a degree in Computer Science and then went to work for the classic British game developer/publisher Gremlin Interactive at the beginning of the PlayStation era. He worked for Gremlin and then Infogrames/Atari for seven years leading programming teams on titles like "Hogs of War" and "MicroMachines" for the PlayStation, Xbox and GameCube. Then in 2003 he was offered a scholarship to undertake research in the field of games and learning at The Learning Sciences Research Institute (Nottingham, UK). Here, he spent three years working with children making and playing educational videogames, before returning to the games industry to work for Sumo-Digital in 2006. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 2007 for his thesis entitled "The Effective Integration of Digital Games and Learning Content". He worked at Sumo for three years as their Head of Serious Games before leaving to take up his current position at Sheffield Hallam.
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4.1 out of 5

261 global ratings

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Bruce K

5 Stars Is Not Enough!!!!

Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2009

Verified Purchase

I have been an educator and professional software developer for over 20 years now and can say that this is the most well crafted instructional book of any kind that I have ever read.

Taking a reader from zero to being able to create interesting games while understanding the logic, design considerations, and even programming syntax needed in one 300 page book with an easy to master learning rate/curve is an amazing feat. The authors deserve congratulations and they certainly have mine.

The book starts with very basic logical programming constructs and builds an initial simple tutorial from these. Through each subsequent tutorial project in the book, additional concepts are introduced while previous concepts are reinforced. The tutorials are carefully crafted such that new material is presented in very step by step detail while previously introduced concepts are referred to in an increasingly shorthand way. This is a great teaching technique and one that doesn't happen without great effort.

Along the way, most modern programming concepts and are introduced and explored in an amazingly non-frightening manner. In occasional chapters through the book the authors take a break from the GUI coding and talk about game design in more general terms and through examples from the tutorials and modified versions of the tutorials showing how game design and game player experience can be improved.

The final chapters of the book deal with coding games and game features in the programming language that is "behind" the Game Maker graphic user interface. While some have complained that this language is not C++, it is certainly close enough in design and syntax that any concept learned here will be readily transferable to another more common language.

The book ends with a discussion of other low and no cost tools that can be used to create graphics and sound files for games or any other software environment, and a discussion of the game design community available at the YOYO Games website.

I can also attest to the fact that all example projects in the book work as advertised. That in itself is an amazing feat.

Bruce Kirkpatrick
MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, MCT, OCP, iNet+, Network+, Security +, A+ ... and so on

9 people found this helpful

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Angel Pretelin Ricardez

Excellent book to begin to program in "Game Maker" / Excelente libro para comenzar a programar en Game Maker.

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2006

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(English)
The book presents a very good structure in its content and through each one of its nine projects, it goes introducing you to the design of the video games.
For people that want to begin in the programming and the design of video games with Game Maker, it is excellent, because it presents the use of this programming platform, so much in their graphic way as in way text, what makes it a very good source.
It also presents in one of their chapters some concepts related with the reactive intelligence applied in the programming of video games with Game Maker.
Perhaps the only point that I had liked to see is an introduction to the 3D games, for people that have bought the license of Game Maker. It had been an extra that we had thanked a lot.
In general I recommend it thoroughly to learn how to program video games with Game Maker in less than one month.

Cordial Greetings

Angel Pretelín Ricárdez
Associate Professor
apretelin@ipn.mx
Professional Interdisciplinary Unit
in Engineering and Advanced Technologies.
UPIITA. IPN, Mexico

(Español)
El libro presenta una muy buena estructura en su contenido y a través de cada uno de sus 9 proyectos, va introduciéndote a al diseño de los videojuegos.
Para las personas que deseen iniciarse en la programación y el diseño de videojuegos con Game Maker, resulta excelente, pues presenta el uso de esta plataforma de programación, tanto en su modo gráfico como en modo texto, lo que lo hace una fuente muy buena.
Además presenta en uno de sus capítulos algunos conceptos relacionados con la inteligencia reactiva aplicada en la programación de videojuegos con Game Maker.
Tal vez el único punto que me hubiera gustado ver es una introducción a los juegos 3D, para las personas que han comprado la licencia del Game Maker. Hubiera sido un extra, que hubiéramos agradecido mucho.
En general lo recomiendo ampliamente para aprender a programar videojuegos con Game Maker en menos de un mes.

Saludos Cordiales

Angel Pretelín Ricárdez
Profesor Asociado B
apretelin@ipn.mx

Unidad Profesional Interdisciplinaria
en Ingeniería y Tecnologías Avanzadas.
UPIITA - IPN, México

3 people found this helpful

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carlo catanzariti

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on October 13, 2014

Verified Purchase

Awesome,Awesome,Awesome

karthick

super

Reviewed in India on May 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

super book it boost my interest in gaming making technology.I love to develop game with this book.Thanks for this book.

Stefano D'Innocente

Recensione Game Maker's Apprentice

Reviewed in Italy on February 16, 2013

Verified Purchase

Veramente non ho letto tutto il libro anzi sono all'inizio tuttavia mi sembra molto buono.Mi piace il fatto che è scritto in un linguaggio molto semplice e nel contempo è anche abbastanza esauriente.Il libro guida il lettore nella realizzazione di nove giochi spiegando passo passo cosa bisogna fare e come.Conoscevo già uno dei due autori del libro(Mark Overmars)perchè ho seguito dei suoi tutorial con gamemaker e lo reputavo una persona molto in gamba.Per questo ho deciso di comprare il libro.
In definitiva consiglio il libro a chi voglia accostarsi al mondo della creazione dei videogames.

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Venton

Excellent Introduction to Game Making

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 23, 2009

Verified Purchase

This book is an absolute delight.
There is such enthusiasm flowing from the authors you get swept along on a fantastic adventure.
The step by step guide to creating games (using the included software) simply couldn't be any clearer. If you have any aptitude at all for making games you will find this book a revelation. By the end of the book (if not long before) you will not only be sparkling with ideas, but you will have the tools to bring them to life. I think this book will definitely be the starting point for many young game makers of the future.
I would like to meet the authors and shake them by the hand, this really is one of the best tutorial books I have come across on any subject.
If you have a kid who plays games, why not turn their enthusiasm into something more creative. Not only will they learn about making games, they will start to learn about programming computers and object oriented design - useful tools in the I.T. job market.
I used to be a game designer a long time ago, and I got this book for my ten year old son. He is downstairs now making another game and calling me to see his work - so much better than simply watching the TV. We really enjoyed working through the examples together.
If I had had this book when I was younger I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven. In my day I typed in buggy listings into a computer line by line and spent days trying to make it work. With game maker it is so much easier with a really friendly interface to click and drag objects around with. Plus, the games you make are really pretty good. You can even publish your games to the authors own web site (YoYo games) and get feedback from other players.

5 people found this helpful

Hans Wurscht

Perfekter Einstieg in die Entwicklung von Computerspielen

Reviewed in Germany on April 27, 2008

Verified Purchase

Ich bin schon lange grosser Fan vom Game Maker und habe mir dieses Buch gekauft einfach nur weil ich den Game Maker und den Autor des Buchs unterstützen will.

Jeder, der zumindest mal reinschnuppern will wie so ein Spiel zusammengebaut wird, kann sich dieses Buch bedenkenlos zulegen. Der Game Maker ist in der freeware Version gleich mit dabei, die Vollversion bietet für 15€ für die Enthusiasten einiges mehr, aber nichts was ein Anfänger vermissen würde.

Auch sehr empfehlenswert für die jüngere Zielgruppe, mein Eindruck ist das ein grosser Teil der Game Maker community zwischen 12-16 Jahren alt ist, und auch für diese Zielgruppe sind die Inhalte des Buches bestimmt sehr zugänglich. Vorausgesetzt, man hat die passenden Englischkenntnisse.

2 people found this helpful

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