Do you love video games? Ever wondered if you could create one of your
own, with all the bells and whistles? It's not as complicated as you'd
think, and you don't need to be a math whiz or a programming genius to
do it. In fact, everything you need to create your first game,
"Invasion of the Slugwroths," is included in this book and CD-ROM.
Author David Conger starts at square one, introducing the tools of the
trade and all the basic concepts for getting started programming with
C++, the language that powers most current commercial games. Plus, he's
put a wealth of top-notch (and free) tools on the CD-ROM, including the
Dev-C++ compiler, linker, and debugger--and his own LlamaWorks2D game
engine. Step-by-step instructions and ample illustrations take you
through game program structure, integrating sound and music into games,
floating-point math, C++ arrays, and much more. Using the sample
programs and the source code to run them, you can follow along as you
learn. Bio: David Conger has been programming professionally for over
23 years. Along with countless custom business applications, he has
written several PC and online games. Conger also worked on graphics
firmware for military aircraft, and taught computer science at the
university level for four years. Conger has written numerous books on
C, C++, and other computer-related topics. He lives in western
Washington State and has also published a collection of Indian folk
tales.
The first video game I ever played (at age 13) was
Pong. It was a very simple ping-pong simulation. During my teenage
years, a few, more advanced games appeared on the market. Most notable
were the Atari games such as Missile Command, a nuclear warfare
simulator. When I was 19, I went to live for a couple of years in
Japan. There I discovered a whole new worldseveral, in fact.