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.

Should continue upon the success of Game Maker's Apprentice, published by Apress in 2006. Book contributed to and endorsed by the Game Maker's "guru", Mark Overmars. Game development continues to be a popular book market area with potential for future growth as barriers of entry get lower and lower.

Autorentext
Jacob Habgood worked in the U.K. games industry for seven years, writing console games for Gremlin Interactive and Infogrames/Atari. During this time, he contributed to a wide range of titles and lead the programming teams on MicroMachines (PS2, X-Box and Game Cube) and Hogs of War (PlayStation). Jacob is now a doctoral student at the University of Nottingham, researching the educational potential of computer games. As part of this research, Jacob runs clubs and workshops teaching children and teenagers how to make their own computer games, providing free activities and resources through his website: www.gamelearning.net.

Klappentext

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.

Inhalt
Fishpod.- Greetings, Game Maker.- Platform Beginnings: An Idea with Legs.- Zool.- Zool: Taking It to the Nth Dimension.- Empowerment: Sliding Ninjas.- Krool's Forces: Sweetening the Challenge.- Fighting Talk: the Empower Strikes Back.- Shadows on Deck.- Game Design: Shadows on Deck.- Storytelling in Theory.- Storytelling Applied.- Of Mice and Pen: Pirate Art.- GML: From Ninja to Pirate.- Rogues' Rendezvous: Vertically Sliced.- The Story Begins.- Reference.- Feature Reference.