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The Game Maker’s Companion - pdf

The Game Makers CompanionDescription
The Game Maker's Companion is the long-awaited sequel to The Game Maker's Apprentice. This book picks up where the last book left off, advancing your game development journey with some seriously impressive gaming projects. This time you'll learn how to make professional-quality platform games with solid collision detection and slick control mechanisms and you'll get acquainted with a long-lost icon of platform gaming history on the way.

You'll go on to discover techniques to add depth and believability to the characters and stories in your games, including The Monomyth, cut scene storyboarding, and character archetypes. This culminates in the creation of an original atmospheric platform-adventure which will take your GML programming skills to new heights. There's even a handy reference section at the back of the book which will be invaluable for adding common features to your own games.

With contributions from four games industry professionals and a highly respected member of the Game Maker community, The Game Maker's Companion is another labor of love that will give you even more hours of enjoyment than the original. If you already own Game Maker then you really must own this book as well.

What you'll learn

  • Learn the fundamentals of how to create platform games with nature's first platform game character: Fishpod.
  • Discover how to recreate the classic 90's platform game Zool (Ninja of the Nth Dimension) entirely using drag-and-drop programming.
  • Learn how to extend and improve upon the drag-and-drop functionality of Game Maker using GML scripts.
  • Follow the design of the atmospheric platform-adventure game "Shadows on Deck" from original concept to a completed vertical slice of gameplay.
  • See how professional designers create engaging storylines with believable characters.
  • Learn how to modify the Shadows on Deck artwork to include in your own games.
  • Experience a practical journey into game development which has been unparalleled since The Game Maker's Apprentice.
  • Gain access to professional game resources from Shadows on Deck which you are free to use in your own Game Maker games.

Who this book is for
This book is for Game Maker's Apprentice readers, along with other game developers in general.

About the Author
Jacob’s career in the games industry spans fourteen years, but he has been programming games as an amateur and professional now for a quarter of a century. During this time he has worked on over a dozen published games for all the major console platforms, including as the lead programmer of the cult British game, Hogs of War. He has programmed, designed and project-managed titles for publishers like Gremlin, Infogrames, Atari, Disney and Konami and he truly knows the meaning of the word “crunch”.
Somehow he also found time to study a Ph.D. in the psychology of learning and has a passion for most things that connect video games and learning (including a whole lot of research involving zombies: zombiedivision.co.uk). This passion also extends to teaching game development, which he practices in his position as Senior Lecturer in Game Development at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.

Book Details

  • Paperback: 440 pages
  • Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (October, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1430228261
  • ISBN-13: 978-1430228264
  • File Size: 22.6 MiB
  • Hits: 1,525 times

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