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.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 22 Ratings

It's OK, But It Lacks Thorough Explanations - 2006-02-14
Reviewer Rating:
First off, this book is fairly easily to read if you have some programming background. This book is obviously not aimed at beginners, so it will require atleast a basic knowledge of Java to make any sort of sense.

What I liked about this book is the rather large number of projects you have to build right from the get go. However, what was most disappointing about this book was the lack of explanations as to what, exactly, is going on in the code. For instance, his section on mouselooking basically dumps two pages of code on you, filled with new algorithms that are accompanied by zero details about how they work or why things are done that way. There aren't even comments in the code that step you through it.

That aspect of the book is really saddens me because that's all that seperates it from a typing exercise and a great lessong in game programming.

Having said all of that. There are some basic functional things you gather that are useful if you are brand new to game programming.

What I had hoped to gather out of this book was more than just code. I hoped that there would be principles that I could extrapolate and take with me from project to project. Regretfully, I don't think this book accomplished that goal.

Great for game developing using JAVA. - 2007-12-10
Reviewer Rating:
Pretty darn great book!
Chapter 1 starts with threads, locking and multithreading animation!!
This is for serious programmers, serious game developers...you gotta have some experience in JAVA development in order to get the best from this book. Beginners will take some time, but eventually prevail.
A must!!

Developing Games in Java - 2007-09-18
Reviewer Rating:
Early attempts at Java game programming usually meant incorporating a foreign framework in your code. With the latest advancements in Swing, it's become easier to develop rich media applications in Java. Developing Games in Java takes this rich framework and explains thoroughly how to best utilize it for both 2D and 3D games. The book could easily be used as a primer in game and graphics techniques as well. Concepts like collision detection, path finding, scripting, and AI are well covered, making this a complete introduction to developing great games in Java.

Excellent intermediate book - 2007-05-29
Reviewer Rating:
I have had this book for a couple of years. It is one of the best games programming books I have read. Be aware that over half the book is devoted to developing a software 3D engine. I found this to be quite high quality and I have even ported it to C++ with no issues. The engine supports texture mapping, shade mapping, z-buffering, collisions, pathfinding and BSP trees. As the author states, learning how things work in software helps when you later use hardware 3D rendering. To be honest, I was really impressed with the speed the 3D demo ran at, considering most people still think Java is slow.

The first half of the book develops a nice game framework to help with redifining keys, choosing a screen resolution, sound effects, animation and 2D scrolling with collision detection. There is enough info here to produce a good Mario clone. There is a chapter on networking but it seems disconnected from the rest of the book (I think it was written by a different author).

One of the best things though is that all the source code (available from his site) compiles straight off the bat, and works with no modifications. I cannot tell you how rare this is for a computer book. All the examples are built as Ant scripts and I simply imported them into my IDE (IntelliJ IDEA, but most other IDEs can also import Ant scripts). They all compiled with no errors and ran exactly as described in the book.

In summary this is an excellent buy for the intermediate Java programmer who wants to get into 2D and 3D games.

Great style Java game programming book - 2006-01-26
Reviewer Rating:
The good things about this book that the author modulates the basic game componets into various class such as screen manager, input manager which enhances the reusability of the game code.

Also, a game can be easily built on the existing class without much tweaking of the original source code.

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