Advanced Java Game Programming

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book For Advanced Game Programmers
Review: As the title indicates, this book is for advanced Java game programmers. If you are looking for a book to introduce you to the fundamentals of Java game programming, you probably want to start off with another book first. But if you are an experienced game programmer, with a few games already under your belt, this book is a must read.

The author deals with numerous topics that are at the heart of effective game programming. The sections I found most pertinent were those covering deployment options, swing animation, frame rate issues, and http network communication. In each section the author identifies the potential problems and pitfalls, discusses several options to deal with these issues, and then proceeds to show through his framework how he addresses these problems. The writing is clear and concise, and the code samples from the author's framework illustrate the concepts well.

One thing that I don't like about a lot of Java game programming books is that they spend a lot of time talking about how to develop your game ideas. While this is important, many advanced game programmers are simply looking for sound advice to improve their underlining game design and performance. The author does a great job of speaking to this audience in dealing with the issues and problems we all face. Many of the issues discussed rang true to me as I remembered struggling to find solutions to the very same problems. The author's framework serves as a good foundation upon which to build your own games.

The only thing I wish was covered was the use of 3D in Java games. This is a huge topic with a number of pitfalls and probably would require a book of its own. This really doesn't detract from my overall view of the book though, as what the book does cover is covered very well.

Overall this book is very well done and I would recommend it to all serious Java game programmers.

Rating:
Summary: generous with knowledge
Review: Chapter 1 starts with an overview of some surprising topics. As you would expect, system environment and installation of the game
demos used in the book is outlined step by step.
Then a brief tutorial on using Ant and the build file provided with the game demo examples used in the book. If you download the source code for the book, you get a generous 150 classes. Many of these are utility classes that you'll find conveniently reusable in all types of game development.

Then comes the surprising part. The chapter discusses copyright
law and licensing. If you are developing games for distribution,
you need to know these issues. It was thoughtful of the author to share his knowledge. The author then shares some sources for
obtaining graphics and audio files for use in your games.

The author's writing style is easy to read. He neither condescends to your level or talks over your head as in some books when they claim to be for the advanced programmer. The author isn't an ivory tower type that talks in the abstract
(a danger since he taught a University course on it). He gets down to the practical! I found his style so enjoyable and down-to-earth that I would always read further in the book than intended in one sitting.

Chapter 2 covers frameworks. How do you want your game to run? The author gives you the flexibility of running as an applet, from Java Web Start, or an executable Jar -- all from one source code set. The chapter shows how to use the HTMLConverter tool to "magically" change your html applet code into plug-in code that gets a later version of Java if needed. Since you will probably want Java 1.4 to run your games, this is important to do since most browsers don't yet support Java 1.4 and thus need the download.

Chapter 3 is the beginning of several chapters on animation. This is where the fun starts. You'll learn techniques for faster screen repainting, smooth animation (versus jerky), and effective use of frame rates. The game demo code lets you try out the effects of your performance enhancements.

Later chapters in the book cover game architecture, game algorithms, game data persistence, etc.

In summary, this book excellently covers what a game developer needs to know to get started developing games for distribution via the web or through jars. The book describes games that can be singly played on a desktop or multiply played via the web. This book is a must read for any serious game developer. Its content is right up to date as it is based on the latest Java 1.4 API. Applet developers who don't write games will also learn some good tips for deployment, animation, and http connections.

Rating:
Summary: Game Framework
Review: Mr Croft explains his game game framework in this book. This framework is capable of handling 2D games via network, especially for mobile games. The book looks old fashing with a cumbersome layout and code examples which take a lot of space. Also the explained code seems to be old fashing, the new features of jdk1.4 are only mentioned about images, while the java.nio package is missing. Only some advanced topics are touched. This book is a good basic to enter the field of game programming in java, but doesn't lead you to the advanced topics.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading title
Review: This is not by any rate a book on advanced Java programming! It just has some very ugly 2D swing-based applications (you really cannot call them games..). Avoid like plague. Java game programming is still in a very immature stage but if you' re really, really looking for a decent book on Java game programming try "Developing games in Java" by David Brackeen.

Rating:
Summary: Useful but lacking
Review: This is very much a code-listing book. Lots and lots of code. There are some fairly heavy text sections, too, so don't think it's all code. Overall it was good, and better than some of the other Java game programming books, but not as good as "Developing Games In Java" by Brackeen.

The primary vehicle the author uses in this book is a demo applet very much like the SwingSet demo that Sun put together to show off Swing's capabilities. But the various applets aren't particularly interesting or good looking, IMO. In fact, some of the applets are downright ugly, which is a shame because they appear to show off some good techniques. But none of the demos actually turns out to be a game that I could say "Yeah, I'd play that".

Also, because of this demo trying to cover lots and lots of things, the book doesn't feel very focused. It's more like selected topics in game programming using Java. And I really didn't feel like very many of the topics were "Advanced", though some topics were covered well, like the A* pathfinding algorithm. But A* tutorials can be found several places on the net and in a number of other books.

I was quite disappointed to find a book calling itself "Advanced" didn't really spend any time at all on 3D topics. The entirety of the book was on 2D, and as I mentioned earlier, most of that was focused on Applets. Case in point, there were 3, count 'em 3 chapters completely on HTTP.

But I'm not going to trash this book completely, as what it does cover it covers well. And it doesn't try to teach you Java, either, which earlier Java game programming books tried to do. There are some good tips, techniques, and coverage of important Java code you'll need to get going in Java game programming. I just didn't feel it was "Advanced".

I will recommend this to any Java programmer who is working on their first game or two and could use some additional resources and code examples.

Rating:
Summary: Improves the viability of Java games
Review: To date, there has been little commercial game development under Java. I won't say none. But if you know anyone in a company writing games, the chances are high that it is in C++. The main problem is that the most lucrative games tend to be twitch games like Doom or Quake. For these, you need the utmost in CPU performance and screen rendering.

Java fails on both counts. Its bytecode nature has a performance penalty on a typical Intel or AMD CPU. Plus its graphic libraries, while adequate, did not easily let the programmer have direct access to the graphics memory.

But all is not lost. Croft's book will appeal to those who still wish to write Java games, despite the above caveats. For one thing, strategy or turn based games do not necessarily need the highest performance. Java is quite viable here. Plus, as he strongly points out, having a game written in pure Java, without even any JNI hooks, increases vastly the places where is can be played. Because it is far easier to install. Fewer (none!) extra libraries to drag along. And of course, there is the operating system independence.

Another point in the favour of Java games is that there can be far less danger of security risks, compared to anything written in C or C++. By running a Java game inside a JVM, you gain this safety. Not absolute, surely, but still reassuring.

Also, Croft devotes considerable space to the treatment of advanced graphics. He discards AWT, and sticks to Swing. This will be familiar to many current programmers who are not writing games. He describes how to use hardware accelerated images to improve the effective frame rate. And many other graphics techniques.

Overall, very encouraging for games in Java. You might want to try it out.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for all online game developers.
Review: With my existing passion for online game development, I was very anxious to see what Croft's book had to offer. I have to say I was very impressed with both the ease of setup and the amount of useful material covered. Many game development books require hours of initial setup and troubleshooting before ever tinkering with working examples--but thankfully, such is not the case with this book. Croft did an excellent job developing a working toolkit with great examples.

This book goes well beyond simple graphics and sound examples for gaming; Croft explains many more fundamentals of online gaming, such as game architecture, artificial intelligence, and networking via HTTP Tunneling. I found the Model-View-Controller (MVC) section of game architecture extremely interesting and very powerful. Croft explains how MVC allows you to create a single environment with multiple views or controllers which all integrate with shared methods. With such an architecture, you could easily port a 2D game into 3D simply by modifying the View module, for example.

The chapters on HTTP Tunneling go into great detail about the importance and ease of use of tunneling, and why it is so important when developing network games. Using Croft's methods you will be able to avoid the headaches caused by firewalls and ultimately make things much easier for your gamers.

Advanced Java Game Programming has really inspired me to continue my development of online games.(...)

To sum things up, I highly recommend this book. With basic knowledge and experience in Java, this book can bring your game development skills to a whole new level.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for all online game developers.
Review: With my existing passion for online game development, I was very anxious to see what Croft's book had to offer. I have to say I was very impressed with both the ease of setup and the amount of useful material covered. Many game development books require hours of initial setup and troubleshooting before ever tinkering with working examples--but thankfully, such is not the case with this book. Croft did an excellent job developing a working toolkit with great examples.

This book goes well beyond simple graphics and sound examples for gaming; Croft explains many more fundamentals of online gaming, such as game architecture, artificial intelligence, and networking via HTTP Tunneling. I found the Model-View-Controller (MVC) section of game architecture extremely interesting and very powerful. Croft explains how MVC allows you to create a single environment with multiple views or controllers which all integrate with shared methods. With such an architecture, you could easily port a 2D game into 3D simply by modifying the View module, for example.

The chapters on HTTP Tunneling go into great detail about the importance and ease of use of tunneling, and why it is so important when developing network games. Using Croft's methods you will be able to avoid the headaches caused by firewalls and ultimately make things much easier for your gamers.

Advanced Java Game Programming has really inspired me to continue my development of online games.(...)

To sum things up, I highly recommend this book. With basic knowledge and experience in Java, this book can bring your game development skills to a whole new level.