Sunday, February 3, 2008

[BookReview] Beginning C++ Game Programming

BookRef: Beginning C++ Game Programming
(Amazon book ref)

Rating:


Comment: Here we go again with the same old "game programming" trick. Let's face it: this ain't about beginning game programming, this is mostly about beginning C++. YES, we have a few console games in the end of the book ( like hangman or BlackJack ) but all the examples are console apps and the most of the coding is driven by statements like "imagine a spaceship" or "imagine a monster" while explaining types, structs, pointers, classes and so forth. A fair title would've been: "Beginning C++ (with console crippled games as examples)". With its not-so-academic buddy-to-buddy approach the book ain't so bad as C++ reference for absolute beginners, but stay away if you're looking for a tough game pogramming guide.


Favourite Quotes:


"Now, when you first hear the term overloaded, you might think it's a bad thing—the operator is about to blow!"


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, let's imagine I want to learn C++ and I have only Java bases (actually it could be the truth :) )...do you suggest me this book?

Unknown said...

This is for absolute beginners, you should probably go for something more advanced; Anyway it won't do no arm if you give it a reading :-)

Anonymous said...

I am not sure why a beginner would want to do C++ anyways. I think game programming uses Lua these days (I am not familiar with it). The lower-level stuff is in C/etc. but that takes a bit more than a beginner's knowledge to do.

I got started on Perl and I can still scare people with my $$$%%% signs.

Unknown said...

Hi Sam,

LUA is great for scripting and it's gaining a lot of market in the last years; as scripting language you can use it with C++ game engines (C# either if that's your choice or whatever).

The point with C++ is that you're very unlikely to find a job as a game developer if you don't know it 'cause more than 90% of commercial games are base of game engines written in C++, and the big companies don't plan to translate it to any other language as long as it works fine.

You're right whe you say that the lower-level stuff (the actual engine of the game) takes more than a beginner's knowledge to do.

Here you can find a good article on game dev about the integration of LUA with low level game engines: An Introducion to LUA.

Cheers