Game Programming All in One [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I admit I am excited about this book, which covers game programming with the open source, multi-platform allegro library. Much easier to use than Direct X, Allegro and this book get you up and going pretty quick. Topics include sprites, sound and AI for your games. The code examples are written in C (not C++), and a copy of Dev-C++ and Allegro come on the enclosed CD.

My only complaint is no coverage of 1st person 3D topics, but as the author states, the reason is 3D engines and games built on that engine are difficult for a single programmer to create alone in a reasonable amount of time, if at all. The focus of the book is on a single developer creating quality 2D shareware and freeware games with good game play. Emphasis on incorporating other freely available tools and libraries to help an individual programmer or small team reduce the amount of coding and resources and to get the title completed is another theme, and he discusses the issues surrounding getting the game published in a small chapter at the end.

Game Programming All in One, by Jonathan Harbour. (This is NOT 3D Game Programming All in One, which is a Torque tutorial.) It uses C to program the Allegro game library (a multi-platform library). Even a VB.Net programmer will find the C language easily understandable in its listings. It comes with a CD that contains the Dev-C++ C compiler (much easier to use than Visual C++), the open-source Allegro game engine, the MappyAL game map designer, and a load of royalty-free sprites.

The book explores horizontal and vertical scrollers, animated sprites, collision detection and gravity effects, as well as sound functions. As far as learning C, a programmer of just about any language will find that a non-issue with this book. At most, you might need to refer to Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 10 Minutes, to clarify some of the funny C symbology, such as

myobject->length

Since Allegro is open source, its comprehensive documentation is somewhat disorganized (~120 pages with no TOC or index), and is mainly useful for looking up some particular syntax. The Harbour book, on the other hand, is well organized, and covers all of the essential aspects (except 3D) in a systematic way, with admirably clear demo code (most of which is presented in the context of a functional game). Allegro does 3D as well as 2D, but that is beyond the scope of the book. After reading the book, you would have to dig the 3D functions out of the Allegro documentation, or go on-line to the numerous Allegro user sites for tutorials. The book provides a number of URLs for these sites.

Now about Allegro. It supports the following operating systems (and more): Mac OS X, Windows, MS-DOS, IRIX, Linux, Darwin, FreeBSD, BeOS and QNX. It does 2D and 3D functions, and for Windows compilers generates specific calls to DirectX 8.

Some specifics:
Raster operations - lines, geometric shapes, Beziers, etc.
Filling
2D Sprites - masks, run-length encoding, compiled sprites, translucency, lighting
Bitmaps - blitting, rotation, scaling, clipping
3D Polygons - wireframe, flat-shaded, gouraud-shaded, texture-mapped, z-buffered
Scrolling - double or triple-buffered, hardware-scrolling
Animation - flip-book animated bitmaps, FLI/FLC playback
Windows Drivers - Direct X windowed and full-screen, GDI device contexts
DOS Drivers - Bunches of drivers for DOS as well as for all supported OSs

Sound:
Wavetable MIDI - volume, pitch, pan, blend, drum mappings
Digital Sound - 64 channels, forward, reverse, pitch, pan
Windows & DOS Drivers - WaveOut Direct Sound, Windows Sound System, AdLib, SB, SBPro, SB16, AWE32, MPU-401, ESS Audio drive, Ensoniq

Other Features:
Device Input - mouse, keyboard, joystick
Timers - Hi-res timers, interrupts, vertical-retrace
Compression - read/write LZSS compression files
Data Files - Multi-object data files, encryption, compression
Math Functions - Fixed Point arithmetic, trigonometric lookup tables
3D Functions - vector, matrix, quaternion manipulation
Text Output - Proportional fonts, UTF-8, UTF-16, Unicode

Oh! Did I mention that Allegro is free and royalty-free? It doesn't have a physics engine, but since gravity and momentum are easy computations, and collision can be easily handled with bounding spheres and boxes, I think Allegro is an amazing bargain. But I don't think I would have the patience to learn it from scratch by using just its own documentation.

The MappyAL map editor, which also comes with the book, allows you to import a set of tile bitmaps as a source pallet of tiles and draw them onto a map of just about any size, in up to 5 layers. Each drawn tile can hold up to 7 embedded data values, and can be toggled for collision. Among the many output options is a CSV list of the entire map containing the tile indexes. MappyAL is also free and royalty-free. When referenced into an Allegro-based C program, MappyAL is tightly integrated, automating many of its features.

FOR TEACHING A CLASS?
Since this is a Thomson/Course Technology book, college instructors may wonder if it is suitable for teaching a class on game programming. It certainly is. (Appropriate prerequisites would be either a semester of C or C++, or two semesters of VB.Net.) This would allow each student to build several complete games for his or her portfolio during the span of a single semester. Attempting to include meaningful 3D game development in this first semester course would up the ante of prerequisites to an unacceptable level. Make 3D a second semester of game development.

Also for would-be instructors, all the required software comes FREE with the book. One down-side for an instructor is that there is little course support accompanying this book. Yes, there are end-of-chapter questions, but they are not particularly exam material. There is no syllabus, no teaching notes, and no PowerPoint slides. As a teacher, I just say, "so what." Standard course support is probably meaningless for this particular subject area.

BIGGEST COMPLAINT:
Getting the Allegro libraries properly installed and compiled, so you can begin the book, is quite troublesome. Unfortunately, the comfortable narrative style of the main body of the text is continued in the two appendixes that explain the excruciating process of setting up Allegro. A numbered, step-by-step list would remove much of the present ambiguity in the instructions. Contributing to the confusion is the merging of steps among the several compilers explicitly supported: "It's exactly the same, except for these differences." Boo! Present separate, step-by-step lists in the next edition.

CONCLUSION: This is a great book for new game developers. The writing is lucid, and should be easily understandable to a programmer with moderate experience in just about any language. VB guys, have no fear. College instructors will have as much fun as their students. Since the Allegro game library also includes support for 3D game development, none of the material learned here will go to waste.

I been searching for a book like this ever since i started learning how to do C++. My goal is to create a really fun text adventure and all the other books i bought were good for learning the basics but this book had exactly what i needed. here's a short list of my pro's and con's.

Pros:

- easy playback for .wav files

- easy function to display a .bmp picture

- tells me how to insert text in any graphics mode to any part of the screen.

- book is based mainly in use with DEV-C++

- shows easy way to make side-scrolling games and animate sprites.

- easy way to do collision detection.

- easy way of stretching your animations giving it a 3d effect based on distance.

- you can really make the old Doom from scratch with this book.

- screenshots made easy.

- all the stuff is royalty free.

- no major header writing headaches when playing with the graphics and sound.

Cons:

- I couldn't find anything on how to store data in a separate file to be read from, like a database of weapon names, item names and monster stats to be read from a file to be used in the main program.

- couldn't find any easy way of making words scroll upwards for my text adventure game. I may need to create a routine for that. luckily this book shows even how to make screenshots really easy and i can just use that principal to make it work.

Summary:

I highly recommend this book to any newbie game developer. even experienced developer will find this book a great asset.