Last Online: 7/4/10
Tim Simpson
Last updated 2008-10-04
I'm a twenty-something guy from San Antonio who is currently working on a Windows / Dreamcast game. The Window's builds use OpenGL and DirectX while the Dreamcast build uses Kallisto-OS.
It's difficult to find time to focus on this project thanks to my full time job, but I can usually find at least two hours a day to spend time staring blankly at the IDE (Update: With my new job, that's no longer the case! HURRAY FOR ADULT LIFE AND THE CRUSHING OF CHILDHOOD DREAMS!).
I also just quit working on a C# / .Net coded Engine that was going to be a joint project with my cousin, but he pretty much never did anything and I didn't even want to work in C# i the first place. He's actually a super gifted graphics processor guru so hopefully we can work together in the future so that I might drain his powers like a vampire. But if we do it will use the code base from my C++ project.
In the meanwhile, coding in care free memory managed C# made me understand a lot of things I wanted to accomplish easier, so now I'm revising my "Engine" yet again. I should have a game out some time before the Earth collides with the Sun.
I'm a twenty-something guy from San Antonio who is currently working on a Windows / Dreamcast game. The Window's builds use OpenGL and DirectX while the Dreamcast build uses Kallisto-OS.
It's difficult to find time to focus on this project thanks to my full time job, but I can usually find at least two hours a day to spend time staring blankly at the IDE (Update: With my new job, that's no longer the case! HURRAY FOR ADULT LIFE AND THE CRUSHING OF CHILDHOOD DREAMS!).
I also just quit working on a C# / .Net coded Engine that was going to be a joint project with my cousin, but he pretty much never did anything and I didn't even want to work in C# i the first place. He's actually a super gifted graphics processor guru so hopefully we can work together in the future so that I might drain his powers like a vampire. But if we do it will use the code base from my C++ project.
In the meanwhile, coding in care free memory managed C# made me understand a lot of things I wanted to accomplish easier, so now I'm revising my "Engine" yet again. I should have a game out some time before the Earth collides with the Sun.
Uncle Jim, don't go! Carideous still loves you...
Recommended Books
Like all college grads, I own a lot of computer books. However, there are only a handful of ones I find I really need. Here are the books I recommend if you're exactly like me.</p>
Note- These are Amazon links, but I heard one time on the internet that Amazon.com kills puppies or something so I'm not actually endorsing Amazon here.
Absolutely the best book on game coding you can find. This book is currently blowing my mind apart. I don't think I've learned this much since college, and unlike college all of its is 100% applicable to making games. I can't stress this enough: you need this book.
and
The Lua scripting language is the most useful free (source code included) tool you will ever find on the internet. What's even better than its small code base and speedy benchmark tests is how easy it is to learn and integrate with your code. Both "Programming in Lua, 2nd Edition" and the "Lua 5.1 Reference Manual" are written by the people who have been writing Lua for the past ten years. Programming in Lua is extremely light and easy reading, that teaches you not only the ins and outs of the Lua language itself but also how to integrate the language into ANY C project. My advice is to buy both books and read straight through "Programming in Lua." It will be a sure-fire investment of your time.
The nuts and bolts of integration with C are saved until the very end. This might put off impatient people due to the 350 page length, but that isn't that long compared to other technical books or even books on Lua. My advice is to stick with it. There are other books on Lua which get you to the fun stuff quicker, but the one I got at least (which shall remain nameless) had a lot of extra garbage in it and seemed to manhandle the design philosophies of the language into the author's own little design. Reading it after finishing the blue book, I almost wanted to gag. Do yourself a favor and learn directly from the source.
Note: You can find a free reference manual for Lua 5.0 and the first edition of Programming in Lua online, but you'd be screwing yourself over by sticking with the earlier version. And besides, both books are extremely cheap and they help fund the creators of Lua.
I'm currently working on a game written for Windows using Dev-Cpp. At this point, finding information online about how to do something using classic Windows programming methods is close to impossible and can take countless hours of Googling and crawling for MSDN. The problem is so many new technologies have popped up since then that there's no real good way to search for the old stuff. These new apis and methodologies exist on top of the classic Windows programming, and are never comprehensive enough to offer a full pass out of learning the classic stuff yourself.
This book presents all the information on classic C-based Windows programming clearly and is well indexed. This is great for people who want to know how to program for Windows using C / C++ without .NET or anything fancy.
Before I had this book, I made a pop up window to change the controls in my game. That window took me almost a month, longer than implementing the game's input routines took, and on top of that the thing was a glitchy, buggy mess. In one weekend of using this book as a reference I completely re-wrote the code for that input window and not only does it look five times better, the strange errors I had before are gone now and things generally run smoother.
Anything I don't understand in this book is easy to search for online since I at least have the nomenclature available to me. It has been an indispensable resource that is highly recommended.
This is a good book that covers an intensely wide variety of subjects with a decent amount of depth. It also does a good job of showing you what you need in different areas, like graphics or sound.
I typically only like books when I'm first learning a new subject, and have no idea to begin. Usually after a few chapters I'm finished with them and can find any other info I need using Google.
Well, a few years after I thought I was ready to start making a game, I found this book while I was stuck in Borders for some reason. The range of subjects covered was awe-inspiring. But the bigger impression it left on me, after just a few moments, was not only how much I didn't know, but how much I didn't know I didn't know. This book covers topics such as :
What's good is that the book usually gets right to the point. If you don't understand something, you can just reread it or research a little bit on the internet. On top of that, the book covers so many important topics you may have not known about. Anytime I pop this sucker open I end up learning something I never knew before. It thus comes highly recommended to anyone who wants to create games.
Apparently they use this book at Digipen's freshmen courses, which makes sense. I recommend it very strongly for beginners and a little bit for experienced programmers people who haven't made a game before. However, programmer's should get Game Coding Complete first, as I have since found that to be a much better book.
Note- These are Amazon links, but I heard one time on the internet that Amazon.com kills puppies or something so I'm not actually endorsing Amazon here.
Game Coding Complete
Absolutely the best book on game coding you can find. This book is currently blowing my mind apart. I don't think I've learned this much since college, and unlike college all of its is 100% applicable to making games. I can't stress this enough: you need this book.
Programming in Lua, 2nd Edition
and
Lua 5.1 Reference Manual
The Lua scripting language is the most useful free (source code included) tool you will ever find on the internet. What's even better than its small code base and speedy benchmark tests is how easy it is to learn and integrate with your code. Both "Programming in Lua, 2nd Edition" and the "Lua 5.1 Reference Manual" are written by the people who have been writing Lua for the past ten years. Programming in Lua is extremely light and easy reading, that teaches you not only the ins and outs of the Lua language itself but also how to integrate the language into ANY C project. My advice is to buy both books and read straight through "Programming in Lua." It will be a sure-fire investment of your time.
The nuts and bolts of integration with C are saved until the very end. This might put off impatient people due to the 350 page length, but that isn't that long compared to other technical books or even books on Lua. My advice is to stick with it. There are other books on Lua which get you to the fun stuff quicker, but the one I got at least (which shall remain nameless) had a lot of extra garbage in it and seemed to manhandle the design philosophies of the language into the author's own little design. Reading it after finishing the blue book, I almost wanted to gag. Do yourself a favor and learn directly from the source.
Note: You can find a free reference manual for Lua 5.0 and the first edition of Programming in Lua online, but you'd be screwing yourself over by sticking with the earlier version. And besides, both books are extremely cheap and they help fund the creators of Lua.
Programming Windows, Fifth Edition [CD-ROM] (Hardcover)
I'm currently working on a game written for Windows using Dev-Cpp. At this point, finding information online about how to do something using classic Windows programming methods is close to impossible and can take countless hours of Googling and crawling for MSDN. The problem is so many new technologies have popped up since then that there's no real good way to search for the old stuff. These new apis and methodologies exist on top of the classic Windows programming, and are never comprehensive enough to offer a full pass out of learning the classic stuff yourself.
This book presents all the information on classic C-based Windows programming clearly and is well indexed. This is great for people who want to know how to program for Windows using C / C++ without .NET or anything fancy.
Before I had this book, I made a pop up window to change the controls in my game. That window took me almost a month, longer than implementing the game's input routines took, and on top of that the thing was a glitchy, buggy mess. In one weekend of using this book as a reference I completely re-wrote the code for that input window and not only does it look five times better, the strange errors I had before are gone now and things generally run smoother.
Anything I don't understand in this book is easy to search for online since I at least have the nomenclature available to me. It has been an indispensable resource that is highly recommended.
Introduction to Game Development
This is a good book that covers an intensely wide variety of subjects with a decent amount of depth. It also does a good job of showing you what you need in different areas, like graphics or sound.
I typically only like books when I'm first learning a new subject, and have no idea to begin. Usually after a few chapters I'm finished with them and can find any other info I need using Google.
Well, a few years after I thought I was ready to start making a game, I found this book while I was stuck in Borders for some reason. The range of subjects covered was awe-inspiring. But the bigger impression it left on me, after just a few moments, was not only how much I didn't know, but how much I didn't know I didn't know. This book covers topics such as :
- The theory of game design (zzz...)
- How to overload the new and delete operators in C++ to change your game to manage and keep track of it's own memory needs - I knew you could do this but my professors acted like it was bad voodoo whose implementation would be too difficult. The amount of knowledge on this topic, as well as the speed and clarity with which it was presented, sold me on this book.
- Audio programming, i.e. the general practice and example of how dynamically created music works
- Elementary math used by games
- 3D graphics, including skeletal animation
- How to create 3D models
- Character AI
What's good is that the book usually gets right to the point. If you don't understand something, you can just reread it or research a little bit on the internet. On top of that, the book covers so many important topics you may have not known about. Anytime I pop this sucker open I end up learning something I never knew before. It thus comes highly recommended to anyone who wants to create games.
Apparently they use this book at Digipen's freshmen courses, which makes sense. I recommend it very strongly for beginners and a little bit for experienced programmers people who haven't made a game before. However, programmer's should get Game Coding Complete first, as I have since found that to be a much better book.
Indie games are like totally so much better because they're more artistic and stuff.
These are a few of my favorites, in no particular order.
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