The Game Maker's Apprentice shows you how to create nine exciting games using the wildly popular Game Maker game creation tool. This book covers a range of genres, including action, adventure, and puzzle games--complete with professional quality sound effects and visuals. It discusses game design theory and features practical examples of how this can be applied to making games that are more fun to play.

Game Maker allows games to be created using a simple drag-and-drop interface, so you don't need to have any prior coding experience. It includes an optional programming language for adding advanced features to your games, when you feel ready to do so. You can obtain more information by visiting book.gamemaker.nl.

The authors include the creator of the Game Maker tool and a former professional game programmer, so you'll glean understanding from their expertise.

About the Author
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.

Reviews

From the reviews:

"The desire to create computer games attracts many young people to computing. This book meets the needs of this group of readers and students very well. It is also a fine introduction to the making of computer games for the experienced software developer who always wondered how games were made. ... There are excellent software development lessons that can be learned using this book ... . the book provides a superb introduction to programming as well as to game construction." (Anthony J. Duben, ACM Computing Reviews, Vol. 49 (5), May, 2008)

Book Information
ISBN 9781590596159
Author Jacob Habgood
Format Paperback
Page Count 314
Imprint APress
Publisher APress
Weight(grams) 879g