BEST BOOKS TO BUY

Digi Programmer · September 28th, 2002, 08:55 PM

Allright m8s how are you all doing, Fine i hope. I am new to this programming lark i am currently working my way through Visual Basic 6, But what i want to know is what are the best books to buy on programming your own pc games. Also can you get books that tell you how to program your own card games. Any help or information recieved will be a big help thanks for your time and help it is very much appreciated.

Best Regards

Take Care all of you

CERuppel · September 28th, 2002, 09:21 PM

I haven't the foggest about game programing, but I'll bump this one for you.

Good luck and

WELCOME ABOARD!

vass0922 · September 29th, 2002, 04:04 AM

hmm I've honestly never done any game programming.. and vb6 isn't exactly renowned for programming games.. although granted it does depend on what kind of games you're talking about.
Card games I think you could get away with it.
What level of games are you talking about?
Serious 3d games, or more like as you said card games and smaller games?
Books in general, most people suggest books by O'Reilly or Deitel & Deitel (publishers).. any specific book I can't help much as I'm more of an application programmer and scripter.

Creosote · September 29th, 2002, 04:23 AM

I can't recommend any books for game programming either. But at the bookstore where I get my books, they have a couple that have 'game programming' in the title. I would suggest just going to a bookstore and seeing what they have. Browse through it before you buy.

stamenkd · January 23rd, 2003, 11:49 AM

Hmm if you are new to programming, learning VB6 might not be the best idea, especially since I hear VB.Net is substantially different. Why not give Borland Delphi a try?

Creosote · January 24th, 2003, 01:48 AM

I would recommend VB 6 for someone as their first lanaguage. It is still the most commonly used programming language.

I would imagine the majority of books to program games (as I neither program games) would be for C++. I've got one book, "C++ Programming for the Absolute Beginner." It's got a mix of learning basic C++ with the later 1/4 or 1/3 of the book dedicated to Windows programming, Direct X, and finally, creating a sample game that they have you do. That's if you did want to try something other than VB 6.

**RobRich** · January 24th, 2003, 12:24 PM

I would recommend taking a look at Visual C++ if you are interested in Win32 game development. You should probably start with implementing routines with the DirectDraw interface to get an understanding of DirectX conventions, then move onto Direct3D once you learn about 3D graphics techniques, such as texture mapping, point sprites, shading, etc.

High-end game development requires much more than programming knowledge. An intricate knowledge of 3D graphics is a must, and this honestly is an area of programming that few courses or books can teach you, thus it is easy to understand the the current industry demand for quality game developers. BTW, most game developers work on specific functions, such as input, sound, graphics, AI, etc.

If you want to learn about cross-platform (Linux, Unix, etc.) game development, then I recommend learning C and OpenGL, though OGL is not for the faint of heart, especially as compared to DirectX.

Robert Richmond

ctaylor · January 28th, 2003, 04:17 PM

SAMS TEACH YOURSELF IN 21 DAYS generally has very good tutorials. I have no experience with their game programming books, but this is one of their game programming series titles:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...693204-1571027