Spells of Fury: Building Windows 95 Games Using Directx 2

By Michael J. Norton

Aiming to bring beginners and professionals up to speed on the Windows 95 Game SDK, this work includes foundations for developing applications; an explanation of Visual C++ and Win32 SKD; and advanced... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571690670
• ISBN13: 9781571690678
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Waite Group Pr
• Length: 634 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.5" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Still one of the best places to start!!!

This was the second book I bought on programming using Microsoft's DirectX SDK. I researched all the other books on the market before I bought it, and by reading this book I learned everything I needed to know about DirectDraw, DirectInput, DirectSound & DirectPlayThis book provides many example games, after reading this book you'll have a better understanding of 2d game engines like those found in Rayman, Myst and Command & Conquer.Another big plus is the author's explaination on how to use Binary Search Trees and Linked List and the sample code provided on how to apply these to creating/destoying objects/entities in games.If you want to learn how to program games for Windows using DirectX you either go with this book or Andre LaMothe's Windows Game Programming for Dummies.Go with the later if you're a complete newbie. Or (better yet), buy them both.

So what if it's old it's THE BEST

In the day & age where everybody wants to create the next QUAKE it's nice to see a book that's main focus is on 2d and multiplayer RPG development with direct X. Every book I have purchased in the past has an entire 4 chapter section dedicated to DIRECT 3D and maybe a chapter or so for 2d programming with direct draw. So what's the beginner to do? I mean if you can't create a 2d game what chance do you have of creating a 3d game? Well with the help of this book you'll learn all the fundamentals of game programming as well as how to use some of the Direct X features. Yes the book only deals with Direct X 3 and the latest direct X version is 6 but any sample included on the CD can be compiled using the directX 6.0 sdk with out having to make any modifications. New features have been added to direct X but beginners need to learn the basics first and this book is the place to start

Good for Beginners looking to do Games in Windows

Even though Directx will soon be up to version 6, Spells of Fury is still applicable to programming games in Windows. The book is ideally suited for someone trying to get into programming games in general plus doing them on Windows platform. I wouldn't bother using the source code on the CD. Be a trooper and write all of it out on your own. You'll find that you will learn more that way.

Good but not great

While I think it's fair to say that this is the best DirectX book I've seen so far, that doesn't say a whole lot. The book is good and covers most topics in adequate detail, but I think I would have liked to see a more complete description of the APIs as they're discussed. I am waiting for something more complete. Something along the lines of "Professional MFC" except covering DirectX instead of MFC.

A very good book

This book is the best I have seen of the DirectX game programming books out there. It covers DirectDraw/Sound/Play/etc. The code presented is very well explained and rather easy to follow. It has 10 examples of games including a side-scrolling jumped and multy-player adventure game. A very good book! I can't wait until the next version...