Games

Take control of your global game development team and make successful AAA game titles using the 'Distributed Development' model. Game industry veteran Tim Fields teaches you how to evaluate game deals, how to staff teams for highly distributed game development, and how to maintain challenging relationships in order to get great games to market. This book is filled with interviews with a broad spectrum of industry experts from top game publishers and business owners in the US and UK. A supplementary web site provides interviews from the book, a forum where developers and publishers can connect, and additional tips and tricks. Topics include:

- Building a core team that excels at working with external development partners.

- Finding and Evaluating studios and publishers to help get your game built.

- Effectively dividing up game projects into parts that can be distributed.

- Saving your teams from the brutality of crunch.

- Running your projects more efficiently and achieve better results.

- Includes interviews with game producers from Sony Online Entertainment, Disney Online, Blue Castle Games, Firebrand Games, Aspyr Games, and 2K Sports.

This book will provide you with a comprehensive guide to developing games for both the Windows Mobile platform and the Windows Phone using the industry standard programming languages C# and VB.NET.

You will be walked through every aspect of developing for the Windows Mobile platform—from setting up your development environment for the first time to creating advanced 3D graphics. Finally, you’ll learn how you can make your applications available to others, whether distributing for free or selling online.

Using extensive code samples throughout, you’ll gather all the information needed to create your own games and distribute them successfully for others to enjoy.

Aimed primarily at C# developers, almost everything in the book can be used in VB.NET too. For those areas where this is not the case, workarounds are suggested so that VB.NET developers are still able to use the techniques described.

What you’ll learn

• How to obtain and configure a development environment for Windows Mobile
• How to build a working extensible game engine to reduce development time and increase reusability and distribution
• Tips and techniques for getting games working on a wide range of devices, including older devices, smartphones (with no touchscreens), as well as the latest hardware—all in a single code base
• A full overview of using OpenGL ES, opening up a new world of advanced 2D and 3D graphics and effects
• Everything you need to know to include high quality sound and music in your games
• Advice and information on the best ways to allow the user to interact with your game
• Guidance on distributing your finished games, including information about freeware listings and tips on creating and selling shareware games

Who this book is for

The book is aimed at those with an existing background in programming and knowledge of one of the two main .NET programming languages (C# and VB.NET), but who do not necessarily have any knowledge of programming for Windows Mobile or programming games in general. The book will guide the reader through the steps required to become proficient in both of these areas of development.

Creating Mobile Games: Using Java ME Platform to Put the Fun into Your Mobile Device and Cell Phone is a practical build-it-yourself mobile Java games book with lots of complete working code and advice:

• Shows you how to create a basic game and make it a professional one (by adding a pro look-and-feel by writing your own menus or using the open source J2ME Polish, and enabling marketing/billing from your own web site)
• Demonstrates Wireless Messaging and other optional APIs (using SMS, PIM, File Connection, Bluetooth, and so forth in a multiplayer game)
• Covers the new MIDP3

What youll learn

• Start using the MIDP2 and MIDP3 in the newly open sourced Java ME Games API.
• Add a truly professional look-and-feel to your Java ME games.
• Use threads, tones, and other media.
• Store and retrieve data and enable networking.
• Create advanced interactive messaging with optional APIs for multiplayer gaming.
• Explore a complete business model for independent developers (distributing their own games) as well as for larger companies.

Who is this book for?

Software engineers with some knowledge of Java who would like to switch to MicroEdition programming, particularly games

If you already have Java programming experience and are looking to program games, this book is for you. David Brackeen, along with co-authors Bret Barker and Lawrence Vanhelsuwe, show you how to make fast, full-screen action games such as side scrollers and 3D shooters. Key features covered in this book include Java 2 game programming techniques, including latest 2D graphics and sound technologies, 3D graphics and scene management, path-finding and artificial intelligence, collision detection, game scripting using BeanShell, and multi-player game engine creation.

The computer game industry is clearly growing in the direction of multiplayer, online games. Understanding the demands of games on IP (Internet Protocol) networks is essential for ISP (Internet Service Provider) engineers to develop appropriate IP services. Correspondingly, knowledge of the underlying network's capabilities is vital for game developers.

Networking and Online Games concisely draws together and illustrates the overlapping and interacting technical concerns of these sectors. The text explains the principles behind modern multiplayer communication systems and the techniques underlying contemporary networked games. The traffic patterns that modern games impose on networks, and how network performance and service level limitations impact on game designers and player experiences, are covered in-depth, giving the reader the knowledge necessary to develop better gaming products and network services. Examples of real-world multiplayer online games illustrate the theory throughout.

Networking and Online Games:

• Provides a comprehensive, cutting-edge guide to the development and service provision needs of online, networked games.
• Contrasts the considerations of ISPs (e.g. predicting traffic loads) with those of game developers (e.g. sources of lag/jitter), clarifying coinciding requirements.
• Explains how different technologies such as cable, ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) and wireless, etc., affect online game-play experience, and how different game styles impose varying traffic dynamics and requirements on the network.
• Discusses future directions brought by emerging technologies such as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone Service), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), Wireless LANs, IP service Quality, and NAPT/NAT (Network Address Port Translation/Network Address Translation)
• Illustrates the concepts using high-level examples of existing multiplayer online games (such as Quake III Arena, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, and Half-Life 2).

Networking and Online Games will be an invaluable resource for games developers, engineers and technicians at Internet Service Providers, as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Multimedia Engineering.

The increased complexity of the hardware in video game consoles such as the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox and other embedded systems has resulted in a demand for programmers knowledgeable in vector-based program-ming. Vector Game Math Processors explains how to write parallel-based floating-point and integer-based math algorithms for use in video games as well as scientific applications.

* Understand all aspects of vector-based programming using the PowerPC, AltiVec, MIPS, x86, SIMD processors.

* Learn how to use various vector processor instruction sets.

* Discover how to program public and proprietary platforms with a vector-based mind-set.

* Explore trigonometric functions and advanced vector math, including matrices and quaternions.

* Learn about vertex shaders.

* Incorporate the sample vector and pseudo vector code into your own programming projects.

On the CD The companion CD contains example code discussed in the book. The files are compatible with the Macintosh, Windows, and MIPS platforms.

David Freeman brings you the inside scoop on how to apply the Emotioneering™ techniques he's so well known for. These powerful techniques create a breadth and depth of emotion in a game, and induce a player to identify with the role he or she is playing. Mr. Freeman's techniques are so highly sought after because they're the key to mass market success in today's competitive game market. The over 300 distinct Emotioneering techniques in this book include (to name but a few): ways to give emotional depth to an NPC (non-player character), even if the NPC has just one line of dialogue; techniques to bond a player to a game's NPCs; and techniques to transform a game into an intense emotional journey. In a warm and crystal-clear style, Mr. Freeman provides examples which demonstrate exactly how to apply the techniques. He also shows how some of these techniques were utilized in, and contributed greatly to the success of such games as "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City"; "Deus Ex"; and "Thief" I & II, among others. The book is packed with striking art by some of today's top concept artists and illustrators, including an eight-page color section and a four-color, fold-out cover. When you've finished this book, you'll be equipped to apply Mr. Freeman's powerful Emotioneering techniques to artfully create emotion in the games you design, build, or produce.

Innovation Through Understanding^sm

The toughest part of innovation? Accurately predicting what customers want, need, and will pay for. Even if you ask them, they often can’t explain what they want. Now, there’s a breakthrough solution: Innovation Games. Drawing on his software product strategy and product management consulting experience, Luke Hohmann has created twelve games that help you uncover your customers’ true, hidden needs and desires.

You’ll learn what each game will accomplish, why it works, and how to play it with customers. Then, Hohmann shows how to integrate the results into your product development processes, helping you focus your efforts, reduce your costs, accelerate time to market, and deliver the right solutions, right from the start.

• Learn how your customers define success
• Discover what customers don’t like about your offerings
• Uncover unspoken needs and breakthrough opportunities
• Understand where your offerings fit into your customers’ operations
• Clarify exactly how and when customers will use your product or service
• Deliver the right new features, and make better strategy decisions
• Increase empathy for the customers’ experience within your organization
• Improve the effectiveness of the sales and service organizations
• Identify your most effective marketing messages and sellable features

Innovation Games will be indispensable for anyone who wants to drive more successful, customer-focused product development: product and R&D managers, CTOs and development leaders, marketers, and senior business executives alike.

As experienced teachers of novice game designers, the authors have discovered patterns in the way that students grasp game design - the mistakes they make as well as the methods to help them to create better games.

Each exercise requires no background in programming or artwork, releasing beginning designers from the intricacies of electronic game production and allowing them to learn what works and what doesn't work in a game system. Additionally, these exercises teach important skills in system design: the processes of prototyping, playtesting, and redesigning.

Teaches the fundamentals of game design through the study of classic systems

Exercises will strengthen your understanding of how game elements work together