Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts

End-to-End Game Development: Creating Independent Serious Games and Simulations from Start to Finish Review

End-to-End Game Development: Creating Independent Serious Games and Simulations from Start to Finish
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The way 'End-to-End Game Development: Creating Independent Serious Games and Simulations from Start to Finish' was written is simply not the way that I feel this book should have been undertaken. For subject matter such as this, an example project should have been devised, and the book should have gone through the steps to do exactly what the title says. Show the starting point of how an idea was created, and the steps it goes through to get from point A to point Z. Instead of doing this, the authors use a variety of examples throughout, with scattered content and scattered results.
This approach might work for talking about a programming language, but I really think it's haphazard way of doing things here.
I simply cannot recommend this book.
**

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You're part of a new venture, an independent gaming company, and you are about to undertake your first development project. The client wants a serious game, one with instructional goals and assessment metrics.Or you may be in a position to green light such a project yourself, believing that it can advance your organization's mission and goals. This book provides a proven process to take an independent game project from start to finish. In order to build a successful game, you need to wear many hats.There are graphic artists, software engineers, designers, producers, marketers - all take part in the process at various (coordinated) stages, and the end result is hopefully a successful game.Veteran game producers and writers (Iuppa and Borst) cover all of these areas for you, with step by step instructions and checklists to get the work done.The final section of the book offers a series of case studies from REAL indy games that have been developed and launched succesfully, and show exactly how the principles outlined in the book can be applied to real world products. The book's associated author web site offers ancillary materials & references as well as serious game demos and presentations.*Step-by-step no-nonsense approach to developing games from start to finish (graphic arts, software engineering, designing, producing, marketing all covered). Indy game developers will gain a clear understanding of what's involved.*Demonstrates a proven process for meshing gameplay and story to create an immersive experience for the player.*Even experienced game developers will benefit from some of the coverage, especially: setting curriculum goals, setting client expectations, and client management.*Authors are authorities in the field with decades of experience in designing and producing entertainment and educational media. Their games and other instructional designs have received numerous awards and accolades and they have held executive positions in training organizations at Fortune 500 companies. *Accompanying web site offers tools and helpful add-ons related to the book, including a serious game demo and presentation.

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Quest to Learn: Developing the School for Digital Kids (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning) Review

Quest to Learn: Developing the School for Digital Kids (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and                Learning)
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This book describes how the New York School Quest to Learn has been set up and how it works. Very inspiring for every educator and edupreneur! Chapeau to all people involved.
Less "chapeau" for the publisher: Why is a book about learning for digital kids only available as a hardcopy? Walk the talk, guys, wake up.

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The design for Quest to Learn, an innovative school in New York City thatoffers a "game-like" approach to learning.

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Bang Colombia: Textbook On How To Sleep With Colombian Women Review

Bang Colombia: Textbook On How To Sleep With Colombian Women
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I read this book before coming to Colombia and continue re-reading it while in Colombia for tons of valuable tips. If you're coming to Colombia and are interested in meeting Colombian women, this book is a great resource for outlining the cultural differences and the challenges you'll face as an outsider. I'd spent a lot of time in other South American countries, but even so, there were big differences in Colombia that Bang Colombia fortunately prepared me for.
At times it's almost eerie how dead-on the descriptions of cultural behavior matched my experiences in real life. My only complaint is that the Spanish text in the book is a bit erroneous or different from the provided English equivalent. Not a huge deal practically, since if you don't know Spanish and need to use verbatim lines from the book, you'll likely be making mistakes anyway.
It's a pretty short book, but it's packed with good information and will certainly save you from a lot of pitfalls and wasted time if you've never been to Colombia.

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Bang Colombia is a travel guide designed to help you sleep with Colombian women in Colombia without paying for it. It contains dozens of moves, lines, and tips learned after six months of research in Medellin, Bogota, and Cali, where the author dedicated his existence to cracking the code of Colombian women, who are more challenging than their Western counterparts.

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Second Life: The Official Guide Review

Second Life: The Official Guide
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This book was a major disappointment.
There is very little How TO info in the book if you are not planning to create objects and try to make money in the sim. If you are just a visitor who wants a pleasant time sightseeing and chatting with others, then this book will disappoint.
A large part of the book is a tribute to selected SL residents who have made money in the sim. Nice for them, but who else cares?
Another chapter describes interesting specific locations in SL. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the sites are obsolete and gone.
Even if you are interested in learning scripting language to try to sell products in SL, there have got to be better instructional manuals out there than this.
When I had real HowTo questions, the answer was rarely found in the book.
I truly felt I had wasted my money in purchasing this book. You can learn as much useful info at the initial Help Islands and inworld tutorials once you enter SL.

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Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, 2nd Edition Review

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, 2nd Edition
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This book is totally appropriate for someone who has never programmed before. Everything is explained, right from the ground up, in a lively, interesting style which doesn't dumb things down.
In terms of the language Python, not all aspects of the language are described - only the parts that are absolutely necessary to know to create games. A reader who wants to learn more about programming should definitely start off with this book first, and then supplementing that with other books specifically about Python (or other programming ideas) if they find they have an interest in that direction.
Topics covered
--------------
The first ten chapters do a brilliant job of leading the reader through the creation of many small games in the text console, which cumulatively cover all the basics of programming: variables, datatypes, expressions, strings and their methods, booleans and if statements, loops, functions, variable scope, lists, dictionaries, string formatting, ASCII. You will use these to create text games such as hangman and choose your own adventure.
Chapter 11 explains Cartesian co-ordinates and some arithmetic that will be used later on.
Chapter 12 to 15 then create one new game per chapter, using the techniques learned so far, adding a great description of how to create simple but effective artificial intelligence.
Chapters 16 to 18 then break out of the text console, using the pygame library to display a window with coloured rectangles, polygons, circles and bitmaps. It then covers methods of animating these images, reading the keyboard, basic 2D collision detection, reading the mouse, bitmaps and scaled sprites, and creating music.
The final chapter caps the whole thing off with a final big game that incorporates all the techniques discussed, with music and the works.
Overall, I can wholeheartedly recommend this book for it's target market: Kids who want to learn to program, specifically so they can create their own games. Adults who have never programmed before will also find it very useful, although there may be a couple of chapters they can skim over.
Inspirational and brilliant.

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"Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python" teaches you computer programming in the Python programming language. Each chapter gives you the complete source code for a new game and teaches the programming concepts from these examples.The book is available under a Creative Commons license and can be downloaded in full for free from http://inventwithpython.com"Invent with Python" was written to be understandable by kids as young as 10 to 12 years old, although it is great for anyone of any age who has never programmed before.This second edition has revised and expanded content, including using the Pygame library to make games with graphics, animation, and sound.

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