Learn Game Programming with Ruby: Bring Your Ideas to Life with Gosu 1st Edition

by Mark Sobkowicz (Author)

11 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-1680500738

ISBN-10: 1680500732

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Level up your programming skills while making fast-paced, arcade-style video games. Make enemy spaceships explode in balls of fire, and escape from a pit while dodging falling boulders. You'll use the fun and approachable Ruby programming language and the Gosu 2D game library, which makes making games a breeze. Gain the skills and techniques you need to bring your own video game ideas to life with moving images and thumping sounds.

If you have a little experience programming in Ruby or another language, then you're ready to start making your own video games. In this book you'll learn concepts such as animation, keyboard and mouse movement, sounds and music, and physics as you build four exciting games.

Your first game will test your reflexes as you try to click on a ruby that pops in and out of your screen. Learn how to draw images and text, and how to make objects move around the screen. You'll make a space-shooter where you defend your home base from a seemingly endless stream of enemies, as you discover how to use keyboard input, add music and sounds, an opening title screen, and scrolling end-credits. Next up: make a sliding number puzzle game where you'll learn to incorporate more complicated logic and user interaction into your game. Learn all about game physics as you build a game where a bold adventurer must climb out of a pit while dodging bouncing, spinning rocks. Finally, package up your games as Windows and Mac apps so you can share them with your friends.

When you're done with this book, you'll have improved your programming skills, and you'll have all the tools you need to make your own arcade-style games.

What You Need:

You'll need a computer running Windows 7 or later, or Mac OS X 10.7 or later. All the other software you need is free, and the first chapter will get you up and running.

Learn Game Programming with Ruby: Bring Your Ideas to Life with Gosu

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Product Details

Paperback: 185 pages
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (September 13, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1680500732
ISBN-13: 978-1680500738
Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.4 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #925,359 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #169 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > Ruby
- #659 in Books > Computers & Technology > Games & Strategy Guides > Game Programming
- #1084 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science > Graphics & Visualization

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Top Customer Reviews

Easy to follow guide to getting up and running with Gosu -- more entertainment and experience than understanding

ByVictor BlakeVINE VOICEon November 14, 2015

Format: PaperbackVine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

This book requires a background understanding of Ruby in order to understand what the code is doing. The software relies heavily on gems and libraries -- and to that degree is practical rather than educational. While it shows examples there is not much in the way of explanation or understanding of what the underlying libraries and gems are doing. The instructions are clear, easy to follow, and include reasonable detail. I was able to easily follow the instructions for installation of the gems and libraries (already had brew installed). I'd highly recommend (as does the other) going through the free Ruby intro courses on Code Academy before getting started. For those completely new to Ruby I'd recommend tryruby.org first, then Code Academy, then this book.

0Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

A Simple, Focused and Engaging Way to Learn Game Programming Quickly

ByKeith RuleVINE VOICEon November 6, 2015

Format: PaperbackVine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

The book appears to have one overriding objective - get a middle to high schooler success in writing a video game quickly. Each chapter starts by defining a goal. It delves in just enough information to layout the ground work and then dives into code. To me this is sort of how I would expect a journeyman to teach an apprentice.

The philosophy seems to be - Keep it simple, keep it focused, keep them engaged.

The book is short at 180 or so pages. It covers three basic types of classic video games: Space Shooters (like Asteroids), puzzle games (like minesweeper) and side scrollers.

The book assumes some basic understanding of Ruby. If you are totally new to programming you probably should start by reading a decent Ruby introduction. There are several good free ones online. If you've dabbled in Python you probably can figure out what's going on by muddling through and occasionally googling things.

This book appears to be classroom tested. I think the layout and efficiency in which topics are addressed show this. There isn't any tough math. I would guess that algebra 1 is a prereq.

Some of the topics touch on are:
1) Physical properties (ie Physics)
2) Game Loops
3) Event Driven UI's
4) Mapping graphics to coordinate systems.
5) Geometry
6) Animation
7) Coordinating visuals and sound

There are many, many more topics covered. But the coverage is stealthy and intuitive. It doesn't require a lot of prereqs. That means that what might otherwise be complex topics are introduced as needed, in such a natural way that they seem obvious. That's a pretty mean feat.

I gave this copy to my son who is 14 and is interested in writing games. He had a little trouble getting going. I suspect had he been given this in a classroom setting he would have chewed right through it. Unfortunately, 14 year olds aren't known for being terribly self motivated. I don't think that's an issue with the book - ti's just the reality of the target demographics.

The bottom line is that this book is very well written and appears to have been well tested and refined.

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Introductory 2D game programming for kids and others.

ByGavin Scotton October 17, 2015

Format: PaperbackVine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

This book from the excellent "Pragmatic Programmers" series is a comparatively short (175 pages or so) and fun/easy book about doing basic 2D game programming for Windows and Mac OS X, using the Ruby programming language and the Gosu 2D gem and some use of the Chipmunk physics library. Several basic projects are presented (an introduction showing sprite manipulation, a puzzle game, a basic platformer, and a basic side-scroller), followed by a chapter on packaging your game for distribution.

The book explains how to get and install the Ruby language and other components you'll need (all free), and the source code for the four projects is downloadable from https://pragprog.com/titles/msgpkids/source_code (which makes it look like the book's original title was probably Game Programming for Kids).

There's no introduction to the Ruby language or programming in general, but someone who is motivated and interested, and who has a little familiarity with editing text files and running programs from the command line should have no trouble picking it up. Basically you type in the blocks of code they give you and then run the result and programs are built up incrementally in this way.

Once you have their example programs, you might then start experimenting with them to see what sort of changes and additions you can make to them. This book won't make you a game programming guru or a ruby guru, but it has several fun programming exercises to work through that will introduce you to both topics.

Ruby is a unique and fun language to program in, and is, I think, and excellent language to use for a book like this.

G.

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Helpful, practical resource

ByMedieval MamaVINE VOICEon November 12, 2015

Format: PaperbackVine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

This book definitely is for someone who already has a basic understanding of coding. The writing itself is interesting, not just a dry textbook. It contains exercises that take you through how to do a variety of programming. For instance, in the exercises it has you make an asteroid type game. You learn how to make and use basic physics engines.

Beyond that, it explains the principles behind WHY it works, and how you can use that information/coding in other situations. At the end of the chapters are suggestions about how you can build on the lessons from that chapter. Throughout are little notes/hints about what to check if your code isn't working.

I also love that the resources it wants you to use are all free, open-source, and it actually shows how to download the software you need and get it working correctly The book doesn't cover JUST the programing, but also addresses how to make your game playable so that other people can download and play it. There are also suggestions for further reading.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who understands basic programming andwants to learn to do more.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

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