The Game Maker's Apprentice (game Development For Beginners)

By (author) Habgood Jacob; By (author) Overmars Mark
Short description/annotation

The Game Maker''s Apprentice shows you how to create nine exciting games using the wildly popular Game Maker game creation tool.

Description

The Game Maker''s 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 making 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.

Table of contents
Getting Started.- Welcome to Game Maker.- Your First Game: Devilishly Easy.- Action Games.- More Actions: A Galaxy of Possibilities.- Target the Player: It’s Fun Being Squished.- Game Design: Interactive Challenges.- Level Design.- Inheriting Events: Mother of Pearl.- Maze Games: More Cute Things in Peril.- Game Design: Levels and Features.- Multiplayer Games.- Cooperative Games: Flying Planes.- Competitive Games: Playing Fair with Tanks.- Game Design: Balance in Multiplayer Games.- Enemies and Intelligence.- GML: Become a Programmer.- Clever Computers: Playing Tic-Tac-Toe.- Intelligent Behavior: Animating the Dead.- Final Words.  

Review quote

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)

Biographical note
Jacob Habgood worked in the U.K. games industry for seven years, writing console games for Gremlin Interactive and Infogrames/Atari. During this time, he contributed to a wide range of titles and lead the programming teams on MicroMachines (PS2, X-Box and Game Cube) and Hogs of War (PlayStation). Jacob is now a doctoral student at the University of Nottingham, researching the educational potential of computer games. As part of this research, Jacob runs clubs and workshops teaching children and teenagers how to make their own computer games, providing free activities and resources through his website: www.gamelearning.net.
Feature

Author Mark Overmars also created the popular Game Maker software, and runs the Game Maker website and forums. The site boasts over 100,000 downloads every month

Author to promote heavily throughout his website

Game design and creation is taught with a simple drag-and-drop interface - ideal for beginners, who are put off by too much code too quickly