Game Coding Complete

David "Rez" Graham is a self-taught programmer who has been writing games in his basement since 1996. In 2005, he landed a programming job at Super-Ego Games where he worked on minigames and AI for Barbie Diaries: High School Mystery for the PC. He also worked on a comedy adventure game called RatRace for the PlayStation 3. In 2008, Rez went to work for Planet Moon and worked on Brain Quest for the Game Boy DS and Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter for the Wii. Rez went to PlayFirst in 2010 where he worked on Diner Dash: Grillin' Green for the iPad and was the lead engineer for Wedding Dash for the iPhone 4. Rez currently works at Electronic Arts as an AI programmer for the Sims division. He has shipped two titles there, which include The Sims Medieval and the Pirates & Nobles Adventure Pack. He is currently the lead AI programmer for an upcoming Sims title.
Mike McShaffry, aka "Mr. Mike," began programming games as soon as he could tap a keyboard. After graduating from the University of Houston, he worked for Warren Spector and Richard Garriott, aka "Lord British," at Origin Systems on the Ultima series, including Ultima Online. Since then he's worked on more than a dozen shipped games, including Magnadoodle (PC); a series of card and casino games for Microsoft; Thief: Deadly Shadows (Xbox/PC); 24 Blue for U.S. Navy; Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars (Wii); Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Wii/PS2); Cook or Be Cooked (Wii); Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (Wii); Thor: God of Thunder (Wii/3DS); and Inertia: Escape Velocity (iOS/Android). Mike is currently Director of Product Development for Red Fly Studio in Austin, Texas.

Welcome to Game Coding Complete, Fourth Edition, the newest edition of the essential, hands-on guide to developing commercial-quality games. Written by two veteran game programmers, the book examines the entire game development process and all the unique challenges associated with creating a game. In this excellent introduction to game architecture, you'll explore all the major subsystems of modern game engines and learn professional techniques used in actual games, as well as Teapot Wars, a game created specifically for this book.

This updated fourth edition uses the latest versions of DirectX and Visual Studio, and it includes expanded chapter coverage of game actors, AI, shader programming, LUA scripting, the Csharp editor, and other important updates to every chapter. All the code and examples presented have been tested and used in commercial video games, and the book is full of invaluable best practices, professional tips and tricks, and cautionary advice.

1. What is Game Programming Really Like?
2. What's in a Game?
3. Coding Tidbits and Style That Will Save You.
4. Building Your Game.
5. Game Initialization and Shutdown.
6. Game Actors.
7. Controlling the Main Loop.
8. Loading and Caching Game Data.
9. Programming Input Devices.
10. User Interface Programming.
11. Game Event Management.
12. Scripting with Lua.
13. Game Audio.
14. 3D Graphics Basics.
15. 3D Vertex and Pixel Shaders.
16. 3D Scenes.
17. Collision and Simple Physics.
18. Network Programming Primer.
19. An Introduction to Game AI.
20. Introduction to Multiprogramming.
21. A Game of Teapot Wars!
22. A Simple Game Editor in C sharp.
23. Debugging Your Game.
24. Driving to the Finish.