Rating: 
Summary: The Best Game Programming Book For Beginners
Review: This book was great! First he talked about the simple game programming techniques and design and simple window creation. Then they talk about using graphics with the GDI (Graphics Device Index). Then he shows you the skeleton outline of the GPDUMB game creation engine. Then you jump straight into DirectX and all of it's features. If you don't know how to program in C very well then I think you should learn before buying this book. Because I was good at C++ and knew nothing about C so I got a little confused until I went to my computer and learned the basic's of C. Then I came back and everything made since. So learn before you buy that way you can understand what your reading, also never skip a single section!
Rating:
Summary: Very good for beginners like me.
Review: I completed my first Windows game ten days ago.So you cansee for yourself what this book can do for beginners like me. The reviewer from July 26, 2000 complained about having the DirectX code just thrown at readers. I also had a lot of trouble with various points throughout the book, but with some investigation I worked out my misunderstandings and learned a lot about Visual C++ 6 along the way. For beginners, I recommend supplementing this book with Ivor Horton's "Beginning Visual C++ 6" and also visiting Microsoft's web site to learn how to configure Visual C++ for compiling DirectX code. If amazon.com blacks out my web site URL, please email me at alfredh@asu.edu I'd love to communicate with others enthusiastic about making games. My next goal is learning how to allow two people on two different computers on a network to play against each other on my game.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for beginners, but...
Review: This book is great for those new to Windows game programming and DirectX. André covers all elements of DirectX 5.0, with the exception of Direct3D. His writing style is easy and enjoyable to read, with a lot of sample code, which, although not perfect, is good for educational purposes. The disadvantage to this book is it is becoming rather dated, so you're probably better off with LaMothe's Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus, which is more recent, about twice as big, and covers everything this book does.
Rating: 
Summary: Diamond in the rough or a rough Diamond?
Review: I'm professionally a somewhat advanced c and c++ programmer. I've worked and been contracted in the field for quite some time. If I were to slap a block of C++ code in front of your face, and tell you that is how you create a class, you might just be able to go off and create a great deal of similar classes (emphasis on might). However, the first time you want to build a class of your own with parameters not in that block of code... you're out of luck. That's what this book does. It slaps some directx code in front of you and says 'that is how you do that'. Normal C and C++ programmers will not go far with this book at all! Those of you who are uproaring about the bad reviews for this book and insulting those who gave the bad review... have all probably had some experience with directx. For a programmer who is trying to learn to use directx for the first time, I would recommend not bothering with this book. I want to have directx explained to me... not thrown in front of my face with a companion code block showing the mere function definition. This book isn't very robust for learning the practical 'real world' game programming uses of directx, and will confuse you to the point of self hatred. And those of you who found this book easy, well, number one, have probably already been staring at msdn for years now... what do you expect? The level of this book says 'beginner'. Its a lie. Plain and simple. The people writing reviews here that are insulting those who had trouble with this book, are probably only on some self-endulged ego trip and are plainly expressing an elitist attitude toward those who had trouble with it. I'm a c++ programmer that makes 90k a year... who just threw a dummy book out the window for being to complicated for beginners of directx.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding ability to teach!
Review: Andre Lamothe knows his stuff. There is no doubt about that. This book is an excellent tutor and will successfully introduce anyone with some knowledge of C-programming to the fundamentals of DirectX, excluding Direct3D. I never had any trouble digesting his examples or explanations. He is very lucid and straightforward, speaking from experience in every instance, giving the reader advice tempered with theory and practice. The book begins by shedding light over and teaching the basics of windows programming. Creating a custom window and handling events therein will never again become a problem. It then delves right into DirectDraw, covering all the basics of both pixelling and bitmapping, the use of surfaces and clippings. One is led so smoothly to creating animations that one hardly notices it, and all along one feels the excitement of thinking thoughts like, "Ah! With this I could...", inspiring one to experiment and even look into the DirectX SDK-documentation to find out more capabilities. The book continues by introducing DirectSound, DirectInput, DirectPlay, and even covers how to create installation programs for your games. All along, as one is learning, one finally ends up with a complete game engine -however basic- that almost completely encapsulates the complexities of DirectX. Finally, Lamothe offers some great theory on game-physics and artificial intelligence. Nothing is perfect, however, and unfortunately neither this book. The reader will undoubtedly have to think for hirself along the way in order to make some code workable, depending on compilator and system. One flaw that I myself never managed to solve on my system is the usage of more than 256 colors. In this case, Lamothe neither gave me workable code nor explained enough to help me make this work on my system by myself. Further, a topic which was left out that I consider important was that of tiling and creating scrollable scenarios. One is left at the end of the book with only one-screen, static levels. Nevertheless, three factors make this understandable: 1) Lamothe had a limited page-count to fit all this knowledge into, 2) It is an introduction to DirectX, and obviously cannot cover everything, and 3) To write code that is workable within every concievable system is an impossible task. To sum up, Andre Lamoth offers the reader a great book! This is not your average "for Dummies" book, and certainly it shouldn't even be called thus. It will get you well on your way to understanding the complex DirectX-API. The rest is up to you. A wonderful beginner!
Rating: 
Summary: Appropriate Title
Review: At first I thought the book was great... it seemed to explain things very well. However the problem is that the code and examples he gives you only work on certain things and in certain situations... For instance, the 16-bit programs don't work on my computer (with an GeForce2 Card btw). Therefore, if you're a dummie and have no aspirations of writing programs different from the one lamothe provides, buy it... otherwise, dont! also some of the info is old and converting to directx 7 is a pain. I would tell you what book to buy but im still looking... maybe "inside directX"
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I truly never believed that I would ever be able to program games, but after reading this book, I have 3 done! I now have a pretty good understanding of the basics of direct x. I must confess however, I did write these games using his game engine included in the book. But, that's not a bad thing. I don't have the time to write my own engine, I just wanted to have fun programming a game and his engine allowed me to do this. A+++++++!
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Summary: When they say for dummies, they mean for dummies!
Review: If you are just starting out at game programming, this is the place to start. This book starts with the very basic game design to the most advanced directx programming! I know very little about c++ but I think this is the best book for game programming. Many books just include how to do animation and sound and really cool graphics, but this book has all that AND tells you the steps of game programming, unlike most other books.
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Summary: Hard concepts explained cool, they way you understand them
Review: This book is totally cool. You don't need to be an expert of any area because the author takes you by the hand in each chapter. Don't be afraid of game programming if you have this book. The author shows from how to build windowed applications using simple and self explanatory C code. You can do your stuff without messing with C++ nor MFC. The book shows you how to do the hard stuff, such handling graphics and sound. The author explains some concepts with enough detail for newbies. Then he creates a game library you can use to start building your games. The examples provided in the CD are great. However, I could not run some demos in my NT workstation. You'd better test them in a Win9x system. I bought this book because I wanted to see what kind of algorithms are used in game programming but, let me tell you that the game area is really fascinating. For a couple of bucks you'll get a really good book that can be used as a reference book too. Is more of what you can expect from a For Dummies book!
Rating:
Summary: Good For Beginners
Review: I found this book a bit in the 'not very helpful' side. The reason I bought the book was to learn about the essentials of using DirectX. Instead, I found a book centered on Andre's code with quite a few wrappers to the DirectX Interfaces [in the sources] that are briefly|poorly described. If you are looking for a good to average explanation of the different interfaces that DirectX offers and how|when to use them effectively, you should try another book (such as 3D Game Programming with C++; John De Goes; ISBN 1-57610-400-1). The text does offer brief discussions on topics such as the Win32 GDI, Game Physics and Sprite Animation among others. On the DirectX side, the book briefly covers DirectDraw, DirectSound and DirectInput. Unfortunately, to get the most out of the chapters, I found myself reverse-engineering the game engine--not the typical 100 lines of simple code. As abovementioned, however, the fact that the book is centered on Andre's engine(s) and how to use it, makes it a good buy for beginners who wish to delve into coding a game's functional logic and (mostly) not worry about the game's Input, Video & Sound subsystems.
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