The Game Makers Apprentice shows you how to create nine exciting games using the wildly popular Game Maker game creation tool. This book covers a range of genres, including action, adventure, and puzzle gamescomplete with professional quality sound effects and visuals. It discusses game design theory and features practical examples of how this can be applied to making games that are more fun to play.

Game Maker allows games to be created using a simple drag-and-drop interface, so you dont need to have any prior coding experience. It includes an optional programming language for adding advanced features to your games, when you feel ready to do so. You can obtain more information by visiting book.gamemaker.nl.

The authors include the creator of the Game Maker tool and a former professional game programmer, so youll glean understanding from their expertise. The book also includes a CD containing Game Maker software and all of the game projects that are created in the bookplus a host of professional-quality graphics and sound effects that you can use in your own games.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 47 Ratings

5 Stars Is Not Enough!!!! - 2009-06-11
Reviewer Rating:
I have been an educator and professional software developer for over 20 years now and can say that this is the most well crafted instructional book of any kind that I have ever read.

Taking a reader from zero to being able to create interesting games while understanding the logic, design considerations, and even programming syntax needed in one 300 page book with an easy to master learning rate/curve is an amazing feat. The authors deserve congratulations and they certainly have mine.

The book starts with very basic logical programming constructs and builds an initial simple tutorial from these. Through each subsequent tutorial project in the book, additional concepts are introduced while previous concepts are reinforced. The tutorials are carefully crafted such that new material is presented in very step by step detail while previously introduced concepts are referred to in an increasingly shorthand way. This is a great teaching technique and one that doesn't happen without great effort.

Along the way, most modern programming concepts and are introduced and explored in an amazingly non-frightening manner. In occasional chapters through the book the authors take a break from the GUI coding and talk about game design in more general terms and through examples from the tutorials and modified versions of the tutorials showing how game design and game player experience can be improved.

The final chapters of the book deal with coding games and game features in the programming language that is "behind" the Game Maker graphic user interface. While some have complained that this language is not C++, it is certainly close enough in design and syntax that any concept learned here will be readily transferable to another more common language.

The book ends with a discussion of other low and no cost tools that can be used to create graphics and sound files for games or any other software environment, and a discussion of the game design community available at the YOYO Games website.

I can also attest to the fact that all example projects in the book work as advertised. That in itself is an amazing feat.

Bruce Kirkpatrick
MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, MCT, OCP, iNet+, Network+, Security +, A+ ... and so on

Great for kids of all ages! - 2009-05-20
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this book for my 9 year-old nephew who is wanting to learn how to do video game programming and he loves it. He and his older brother (14 y/o) sit down and try to create new games that each of them can play together. I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a book that explains things in a way that a kid can understand. It's a great resource. Too bad they won't let their uncle borrow it. :-(

Easy read but tough concept to master.... - 2009-05-10
Reviewer Rating:
After purchasing this book I was a bit suprised how easy it was to create my first game. As I read on I really got into the concept of Drag & Drop programming. But... then as I got to the end I realized GML is the real power behind Gamemaker! D&D is great and works for simple games but GML is what you really need to learn. This is where the book goes a little down hill. I had so many ideas for what I wanted to program in my games and this book just didn't cover them. This book is for the beginner who wants to program some simple games but if you really want to learn to program games you will have to go to Google or the Gamemaker community forum to get the real help in GML programming! All in all this is a great read and it gets you started right off th bat but you will soon find yourself wanting more and that is when you will put this book down and look for other resouces!
Have fun!

The Disc Was Broke .. - 2009-10-13
Reviewer Rating:
The Disc Was Broke And Could Not Get Any One To Respond.
When We Went To Where Is My Stuff It Was Not There Like
I Never Bought it.We Did Buy A New One It Was A Gift For My Son .
The New One Has Not Arrived But I Will Let You Know..

Great book. The kids love it! - 2009-10-01
Reviewer Rating:
Great book and service. I ordered the book for a student who wants to learn how to make video games and couldn't do it from scratch. The book is very helpful and written so he could understand and apply it.

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