Game Programming with Python

by Sean Riley

Book Overview

If C and C++ are the languages of choice for game programmers, why should you consider using Python? Game Programming with Python explores this question in depth and teaches you why and how Python can... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1584502584
• ISBN13: 9781584502586
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Charles River Media
• Length: 470 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.2" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Not for the beginner, but a fantastic source for pros

Game Programming With Python is not for beginners. I will say that up front. There are many advanced topic that seasoned pros and up and coming programmers will enjoy -- procecedural content, a* path-finding, asynchronous game servers. These are not for the faint-of-heart, but they are exceptional topics for game programming. Having done an a*star path finding implementation back in my brief time as a game programmer, I can appreciate his work. A lot of the examples and example code are written in Python and written to a Python graphics library, so they may not be pertinent to your development environment. However, some of the topics presented are very applicable to game design, especially some of the advanced topics. Personally, I liked the book. When I browse books at my neighbor book store, I usually flip to the back to find the interesting things. I skip the Chapter 1 "What is XML" stuff, and head to the juicy stuff in the back. Not so with this book. All of it is juicy geeky techy stuff.

Very good introduction to game coding

I know Python pretty well and I find that it is often an excellent way to quickly explore new programming concepts. Python is so powerful that you can quickly get a feel for the subject by coding a bit. At work, you may have to use a different language, but at least you will know the subject. That's how I got to understand XML and unit testing for example. A good book always helps the process though. As a newbie to games, I found this book to be an excellent introduction to game coding. It basically walks you through the material you need to create simple 2D real time games on OpenGL, including how to code simple multiplayer games (using Twisted for the networking). It does an excellent job of demystifying basic game concepts and makes me think that I could write a simple game myself, given sufficient time. The code samples, which I mostly did not run though, are well-crafted and minimalist - just enough to get the job done and no more. This is very clean and expressive code where every line serves a purpose. I am more interested by turn-by-turn web-based 2D games, so I am currently not using the book all that much. However, once I have figured out my user interface, I will surely return to it to learn how to manage game objects, persistence, game states, and the like. One caveat, and not a big one. As another reviewer stated, the book excels at showing how to develop modular code by gradually building libraries of reusable code that you can use for a number of games. The author pulls off the trick of doing that in a Python-sensible manner, without adding the overhead that Java/C++ would require, but that Python doesn't. However, the resulting code, while extremely well thought out, easy to describe, and modular, is distributed though multiple classes in numerous files . This makes it somewhat hard to just start hacking his code. I quickly got lost while trying to modify the network protocol he used for the sample tic-tac-toe application. In other words, while his code structure is very appropriate to a serious production system, I feel that it is a bit too complex for me to use as a starting point. Monolithic code has many drawbacks but can provide an easier _initial_ learning curve.

I just love it ...

When I buy a book with source code I first run the examples and then I start reading, so I followed all the installation steps and every single example worked nicely so. The book is clear, concise, fun tu read and I do recommend it fully. If you are serious about writing your own online game and learning Python, get this one. It 's worth the money.

Excellent and easy to read

This book is packed with useful game concepts and algorithms. In some ways, it is quite basic as it begins with simple concepts and the python code is easy to comprehend, but in other ways it is very advanced. The later chapters detail AI routines, terrain generation, network protocol design and multi-language development - advanced topics for most programmers who would buy this book.The way the author builds a library of code and uses the library in increasingly complex situations make this a good showcase of how to write modular software.I'd highly recommend this book for python programmers, game programmers interested in scripting or alternative languages, or anyone who likes to know how games actually work.

great game programming book

Not just a book on Python programming, this is a great book about game programming in general. I'll keep it as a general reference on game stuff. The concepts and algorythms here are useful and relevant to game programming in any language. The use of Python as the implementation language makes the content accessible and easy for programmers of all levels to grasp.This books covers an incredible range of topics from simulations to graphics, networking and artificial intelligence. The fact that the Python code is so compact makes it possible to cram all of this useful information into a single book. If all of this code were is C++, it would take three books to hold it!Overall, one of the best game programming books currently available.