Beginning C# Game Programming (Game Development) 1st Edition

I have read a lot of Premier books in my days. One thing is constant through all of their books: they are riddled with errors. They are not complex errors that only an advanced programmer would catch - they are stupid mistakes that an author who reviewed his work would catch. What's worse, most of the authors of these game programming books have about as much experience as I do - and I haven't even worked in the field yet! For a book that spends the first 5 chapters talking about the C# language, you would think the author would realize you can't have drop-through in switch-statments and that you can't have multiple type specifiers in a for-loop header. I read these books hoping for some entertainment and to learn some new skills. I definitely get a laugh! I will say that there are some decent programming books by this joke of a publisher, but it is like navigating a mine-field. My only suggestion to beginners is to go to a site like gamedev and see what they recommend. And for the experienced programmer, I don't recommend Premier books at all. Go for a book that is not split between the language and the gaming library. If you really want, I will give you some definite reads for anyone serious about getting a head-start. For such a large, growing industry, you would think there would be better books out there. All in all, I would not put this book down entirely - it does try to present the language and still has time to cover direct3D at some point. The reality is, though, the world is not ready for C# gaming yet and anyone serious about beginning game programming should find a book using C/C++. I hope this review has not aroused too much spite on my behalf.

After learning basic-moderate level functions in C++ and looking at Java code for a little while, this book was... for the most part, easy to follow.There are two main issues that I found, however.If I had absolutely 0 programming experience, then this book would be incredibly difficult to use, as there are MANY MANY MANY things that get thrown in 2 pages. There's barely any filler text, which is a plus, but for every topic there's 1, MAYBE 2 example texts. When I used my C++ book, I had a full two++ pages of examples per topic. Putting it bluntly, I had to read this with Google open for Chapters 3-5 because of either my misreading, or the brief explanations.The gaming portion of the book is a nice introduction on how to set up your C# files, and what actually happens within a game. The last chapter (making your own game) is a little lackluster because of the time difference between the publication of the book and the year 2012. He was using Sharp v. 0.99 which has a different setup than today's (2.?). I read along with the gaming portion, but couldn't actually do it because I spent hours trying to look for a few links to point me in the right direction going off of what was written.In general, don't hesitate to buy this book IF you need to learn basic C#, want to learn the basics of setting up files / game programming in general, have a little bit of knowledge in programming a different language, and have an open Google homepage on a nearby computer.

This book was pretty good for a beginner book. I had very little experience programming before I read it. The good points to it is that it is easy to read and the first half explains c# fairly well even if you have never worked with any other programming language or if you are just trying to learn a new one. The reason I dropped it 2 stars(i.e. 'the bad') is that it is outdated by a long shot. The entire second half of the book is pretty much useless in today's standards. It deals with direct x and an older .net framework. But as of this writing the current version of .net doesn't support direct x. Even as the book was published it explains that the version of direct x used in the book is out dated and there was already a new version of it that somethings won't work with. So to follow along or use what you learn in this half of the book you have to install legacy sdks and use a version of the .net framework that is almost 3 full generations outdated. The general concepts are still worthwhile to learn however, I wouldn't really recommend this book. It isn't horrible though so I won't go as far to say you definitely need to find something else. If you are looking to learn C# I would recommend finding the Rob Miles C# Yellow book pdf that floats around the web, or at least a book that is up to date with the current version of C# and the .net framework. If you are wanting to learn more about game programming with C# I would definitely recommend not getting this book and looking for something about XNA game programming.

I am very VERY inexperienced at programming. I got into C++ at a very young age, probably to young, all because I wanted to be able to make games. I'M now 23 and I'M trying to get back into the game. My biggest complaint to this book compared to all the C++ books I've read over the past five years or so, was his examples. He just gave you code snipets. What an inexperienced person like myself needs is for the an author to teach you a new trick, show you some examples, and then give you the source for a small full program showing you how it works. Most books I've read teach something, then they say now type all this and watch it compile, then they go over each peace line by line just to be sure you got it. I'M only into the fist half of this book but I'M already getting frustrated. I would recommend "C# programming for the absolute beginner". I have read the C++ version and it was a good one.

This serves as an excellent introduction to game programming and is highly recommended and covers some major fundementals missing from more up to date books. I was disappointed to see that one reviewer has given the book 1 star as his laptop did not support DirectX 9b which is quite frankly amazing, perhaps his laptop is coal-powered too. Anyway the book has a good learning curve, with fundementals at the start and more challenging tasks at the end. I attribute my high levels of programming ability in XNA to this and would strongly advise anyone wishing to create a decent product to start here.

A good book, but takes a different approach to the other books I have purchased. This book is straight in to DirectX and other programming techniques. It is something I will come on to eventually, once I have a better understanding of game programming.It says beginners and it does give some starting information, but if you have an understanding of c# it helps

Item as expected no big surprise there reasonably priced and goods arrived when listed,would recommend to others if asked.

Das Buch ist zwar sehr verständlich geschrieben und könnte einem eigentlich auch das Rüstzeug an die Hand geben, mit DirectX loszulegen. Leider hat das Buch einen großen Haken: es basiert auf DirectX9.0b. Und in der aktuellen Version (9.0c) hat sich so ziemlich alles geändert, so dass die Beispiele aus dem Buch zum Teil überhaupt nicht mehr funktionieren. Im Buch steht zwar, dass auf der Homepage des Autors ([...]) die Codebeispiele auf 9.0c angepasst würden, aber auf der Website ist schlichtweg NIX zu sehen. Sorry, aber das ist echt mau.Außerdem hat Herr Penton eine etwas seltsame Vorstellung von X/Y-Koordinatensystemen. Normalerweise ist der Punkt (0,0) die linkere obere Ecke jeder Grafik, Kamera, jedes Sprites etc. Herrn Penton gefällt das aber aus unerfindlichen Gründen nicht. So schreibt er sich "eigene" Kameras, Sprites etc. deren (0,0)-Punkt im Zentrum des jeweiligen Objekts liegt. Damit programmiert er leider an der gesamten Informatikwelt vorbei. Sein ach so tolles Framework ist damit meines Erachtens ziemlich sinnlos.Mein letzter großer Kritikpunkt an dem Buch ist, dass es das Thema 3D-Programmierung schlichtweg unter den Tisch fallen lässt! Alles findet in 2D statt! Da hätte ich dann doch etwas mehr erwartet.Schade! Denn wie gesagt: das Buch ist sehr verständlich und anschaulich geschrieben. Hätte man sich die Mühe gemacht, es an die Version 9.0c von DirectX anzupassen, wäre es bestimmt sein Geld wert. So bekommt man jedoch nur einen (zwar sehr guten) theoretischen Überblick über das Thema, aber wenn Themen die 3D komplett ausgelassen werden, fehlt eben doch eine Menge.