Beginning C# Game Programming (Game Development)

What you will learn:how to setup your devices (3d, sound, etc)how to use sprites in 3d (albeit you have to convert his sprite implementation to directx9.0c ... which is somewhat complicated, but not impossible)what you won't learn:using 3d meshes, 3d animations, terrain, etc.This really is an introductory book, and i highly recommend it for the beginning C#/MDX programmer. Most of you will find it too novice for your tastes, but even though I gave up trying to convert Ron's sprites to directx 9.0c, i still learned a ton from all of the chapters up until the sprite drawer. (all of which compiled fine until using Direct3DX.dll)Pick up the book if you're new, if you're new to MDX... but you know DX... skip this book.

This is not a bad book. It's a good introduction to C# and Managed DirectX.HOWEVER.Managed DirectX, the entire reason you are getting this book, has been deprecated. Microsoft does not support it. SharpDevelop, the open-source C# IDE recommended by this book, no longer includes Direct3D templates.If you want to do .NET / C# game development, you need to learn XNA. (Unfortunately, XNA seems focused on the XBox 360 and Windows Mobile 7 phone.) The information in this book, while good at the time it was written, is now no longer useful.If for some reason you still want it, know that about 50% of the book is an introduction to C#. It will be beneficial if you already know C++ or Java but it will be of no use to you if you don't. The latter half, despite using Direct3D, revolves around creating a 2D space shooter, and everything it teaches you to do is something you WON'T want to do if you go on to make a 3D game. That being said, it is not a bad introduction when paired with other books on 3D games, or Direct3D.But, again, this book is very outdated and will only provide you with a basic introduction to an SDK that is no longer supported by Microsoft.

After learning basic-moderate level functions in C++ and looking at Java code for a little while, this book was... for the most part, easy to follow.There are two main issues that I found, however.If I had absolutely 0 programming experience, then this book would be incredibly difficult to use, as there are MANY MANY MANY things that get thrown in 2 pages. There's barely any filler text, which is a plus, but for every topic there's 1, MAYBE 2 example texts. When I used my C++ book, I had a full two++ pages of examples per topic. Putting it bluntly, I had to read this with Google open for Chapters 3-5 because of either my misreading, or the brief explanations.The gaming portion of the book is a nice introduction on how to set up your C# files, and what actually happens within a game. The last chapter (making your own game) is a little lackluster because of the time difference between the publication of the book and the year 2012. He was using Sharp v. 0.99 which has a different setup than today's (2.?). I read along with the gaming portion, but couldn't actually do it because I spent hours trying to look for a few links to point me in the right direction going off of what was written.In general, don't hesitate to buy this book IF you need to learn basic C#, want to learn the basics of setting up files / game programming in general, have a little bit of knowledge in programming a different language, and have an open Google homepage on a nearby computer.

This book was pretty good for a beginner book. I had very little experience programming before I read it. The good points to it is that it is easy to read and the first half explains c# fairly well even if you have never worked with any other programming language or if you are just trying to learn a new one. The reason I dropped it 2 stars(i.e. 'the bad') is that it is outdated by a long shot. The entire second half of the book is pretty much useless in today's standards. It deals with direct x and an older .net framework. But as of this writing the current version of .net doesn't support direct x. Even as the book was published it explains that the version of direct x used in the book is out dated and there was already a new version of it that somethings won't work with. So to follow along or use what you learn in this half of the book you have to install legacy sdks and use a version of the .net framework that is almost 3 full generations outdated. The general concepts are still worthwhile to learn however, I wouldn't really recommend this book. It isn't horrible though so I won't go as far to say you definitely need to find something else. If you are looking to learn C# I would recommend finding the Rob Miles C# Yellow book pdf that floats around the web, or at least a book that is up to date with the current version of C# and the .net framework. If you are wanting to learn more about game programming with C# I would definitely recommend not getting this book and looking for something about XNA game programming.

This is exactly what you need to start from scratch into game programming and programming in grneral. It is very honest from them stating that no previous knowledge on any programming language is needed although it helps greatly if you kind of do your hw on studying topics deeply. Know that you do not have to expect to follow the technical procedures (configuring the computer and related) to the letter for that would create a lot of headaches with the using of current computers. Get the overall idea and apply yourself and this book will be extremely useful.

If you don't have prior programing experience then RUN FAR FAR away from this bookthe author just throws out jargon without explaining itIf you don't already know how to us C++ you will be totally lost as I wasRIP OFF

No. Don't buy/get this book. I have previous experience with programming (Programming I and II (C++ but just split in 2 classes)) and I thought I was decently familiar with C++, so I wanted to learn more. I thought, hey, why not C#. I heard many games for the Xbox are developed in XNA and they use C#. So I thought that I'd get this book. Yeah, no. Don't get it. If you were to buy a book for a beginning C# tutorial with examples, get "Beginning Visual C# 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)" This book teaches you a lot. This book teaches you how to output data on the screen correctly, how to do math for calculations, how to make if-else statements, and how to create classes for objects like cards and players from scratch. In the first 6 chapters alone I have covered almost all of what I did in Programming I and part of Programming II. I say if you want to learn C# from a beginner's stand point, get "Beginning Visual C# 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)"

This is a good book for people looking to get their feet wet in C# and learn a little about DirectX. However, this is not recommended for persons past the beginner stage. The book shows limited amounts of DirectX and DirectX extensions. If programming games intrigues you and know nothing about a programming language, this is a great start. This book shows the beginning steps of C# using SOME DirectX.

This serves as an excellent introduction to game programming and is highly recommended and covers some major fundementals missing from more up to date books. I was disappointed to see that one reviewer has given the book 1 star as his laptop did not support DirectX 9b which is quite frankly amazing, perhaps his laptop is coal-powered too. Anyway the book has a good learning curve, with fundementals at the start and more challenging tasks at the end. I attribute my high levels of programming ability in XNA to this and would strongly advise anyone wishing to create a decent product to start here.

Das Buch ist zwar sehr verständlich geschrieben und könnte einem eigentlich auch das Rüstzeug an die Hand geben, mit DirectX loszulegen. Leider hat das Buch einen großen Haken: es basiert auf DirectX9.0b. Und in der aktuellen Version (9.0c) hat sich so ziemlich alles geändert, so dass die Beispiele aus dem Buch zum Teil überhaupt nicht mehr funktionieren. Im Buch steht zwar, dass auf der Homepage des Autors ([...]) die Codebeispiele auf 9.0c angepasst würden, aber auf der Website ist schlichtweg NIX zu sehen. Sorry, aber das ist echt mau.Außerdem hat Herr Penton eine etwas seltsame Vorstellung von X/Y-Koordinatensystemen. Normalerweise ist der Punkt (0,0) die linkere obere Ecke jeder Grafik, Kamera, jedes Sprites etc. Herrn Penton gefällt das aber aus unerfindlichen Gründen nicht. So schreibt er sich "eigene" Kameras, Sprites etc. deren (0,0)-Punkt im Zentrum des jeweiligen Objekts liegt. Damit programmiert er leider an der gesamten Informatikwelt vorbei. Sein ach so tolles Framework ist damit meines Erachtens ziemlich sinnlos.Mein letzter großer Kritikpunkt an dem Buch ist, dass es das Thema 3D-Programmierung schlichtweg unter den Tisch fallen lässt! Alles findet in 2D statt! Da hätte ich dann doch etwas mehr erwartet.Schade! Denn wie gesagt: das Buch ist sehr verständlich und anschaulich geschrieben. Hätte man sich die Mühe gemacht, es an die Version 9.0c von DirectX anzupassen, wäre es bestimmt sein Geld wert. So bekommt man jedoch nur einen (zwar sehr guten) theoretischen Überblick über das Thema, aber wenn Themen die 3D komplett ausgelassen werden, fehlt eben doch eine Menge.

A good book, but takes a different approach to the other books I have purchased. This book is straight in to DirectX and other programming techniques. It is something I will come on to eventually, once I have a better understanding of game programming.It says beginners and it does give some starting information, but if you have an understanding of c# it helps