Game Development with Ren'Py


Book Description

Get your feet wet in developing visual novels and take a guided tour through easy to follow tutorials using three of the most popular tools (Ren'Py, TyranoBuilder, and Twine). This book uses a two-pronged approach into the fine art of text-based games, showing you what makes for compelling writing as well as the programming logic and techniques needed to bring your visual novels to life. In this book, you will uncover the rich history of interactive fiction from the bare-bones 1970s games to the audiovisually rich modern output. You will take a detailed look at how to work with some of the most popular and exotic sub-genres and tropes of interactive fiction, such as nakige ("crying game"), dating sims, and horror. Once the stage is set, you will learn to use all-purpose programming logic and techniques in three mini tutorial games and also learn how to deploy your titles to both desktop and mobile platforms. Not solely relegated to the ancient historical period of the 1980s and 1990s, interactive fiction has again become appealing to developers as new tools became available. The visual novel is an increasingly popular and potentially lucrative genre of video game, being deployed for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and more. Game Development with Ren'Py reveals how multi-platform tools such as Ren'Py, TyranoBuilder, and Twine are becoming ever more plentiful for creating games in this genre. What You'll Learn Gain a working knowledge of Ren'Py, TyranoBuilder, and Twine Examine the basics of general programming logic Deploy to all available operating systems and platforms Review different approaches to fiction writing in the context of text-based games Who This Book Is For People with no programming experience who are interested in working in the genre of visual novels or interactive fiction.




Theory of Fun for Game Design


Book Description

Discusses the essential elements in creating a successful game, how playing games and learning are connected, and what makes a game boring or fun.




C Programming FAQs


Book Description

Written by the originator of the USENET C FAQ, this book addresses the real-world problems on C programming that are asked, again and again, on the "comp.lang.c" newsgroup. The book is aimed at C programmers who need quick, concise answers to the stubborn questions which invariably arise when programming in C. It provides accurate answers, insightful explanations, and extensive code examples.




Mostly Codeless Game Development


Book Description

Get a head start in your game development career with this all-genre guide for absolute beginners. Whether you're into action games, role-playing games, or interactive fiction, we've got you covered. Mostly Codeless Game Development empowers new developers with little or no previous programming experience and explores all major areas of game development in a succinct, entertaining fashion. Have you dreamed of making your own video game? Do you find the prospect daunting? Fear not. A new generation of game engines has emerged. Lengthy and complicated feats of programming are largely a thing of the past in video game development. To create commercially viable games you simply need the right tools, many of which are discussed in this book. A gigantic software team isn't a must-have prerequisite for success. The one-person operation is back. What You Will Learn Master the concepts and jargon used in game creation for the beginner Find the best game development suite for your project Make the most out of related graphics and audio production software Discover video game marketing essentials Who This Book Is For People with no programming experience who desire a career in the video game industry as producers or independent, single-person developers./div




Anime and the Visual Novel


Book Description

This book describes the thematic and structural traits of a recent and popular development within the realm of anime: series adapted from visual novels. Visual novels are interactive fiction games in which players creatively control decisions and plot turning points. Endings alter according to the player's choices, providing a motivation to replay the game and opt for alternative decisions each time. Pictorial sumptuousness, plot depth and subtle characterization are vital aspects of the medium. Anime based on visual novels capitalizes on the parent games' attributes, yielding thought-provoking yarns and complex personalities.




Program Arcade Games


Book Description

Learn and use Python and PyGame to design and build cool arcade games. In Program Arcade Games: With Python and PyGame, Second Edition, Dr. Paul Vincent Craven teaches you how to create fun and simple quiz games; integrate and start using graphics; animate graphics; integrate and use game controllers; add sound and bit-mapped graphics; and build grid-based games. After reading and using this book, you'll be able to learn to program and build simple arcade game applications using one of today's most popular programming languages, Python. You can even deploy onto Steam and other Linux-based game systems as well as Android, one of today's most popular mobile and tablet platforms. You'll learn: How to create quiz games How to integrate and start using graphics How to animate graphics How to integrate and use game controllers How to add sound and bit-mapped graphics How to build grid-based games Audience“div>This book assumes no prior programming knowledge.




Make Your Own Twine Games!


Book Description

Bring your game ideas to life with Twine! Twine is a free online tool that lets anyone new to programming create their own interactive, story-based adventure games in a web page. In Make Your Own Twine Games!, game designer Anna Anthropy takes you step-by-step through the game development process, from coming up with a basic idea to structuring your game. You’ll learn the basics of Twine like how to use links and apply images and formatting to make your game look more distinct. You’ll get tips on how to test your game, export it, and publish it online, and even understand more advanced features like scripting to get your game to remember and respond to player choices. As you make your way through the book and begin crafting your own interactive fiction, you’ll learn other cool tricks like how to: • Write stories that follow multiple paths using hyperlinks • Create variables to track your player’s actions • Add scripting like “if” and “else” to decide when ghosts should appear in your game • Use hooks to add fancy touches like text effects, pictures, and sound With example games to act as inspiration, Make Your Own Twine Games! will take you from story-teller to game designer in just a few clicks! Ready player one? The game starts now. Covers Twine 2




Programming Game AI by Example


Book Description

This book describes in detail many of the AI techniques used in modern computer games, explicity shows how to implement these practical techniques within the framework of several game developers with a practical foundation to game AI.




Neverending Stories


Book Description

Digital fiction has long been perceived as an experimental niche of electronic literature. Yet born-digital narratives thrive in mainstream culture, as communities of practice create and share digital fiction, filling in the gaps between the media they are given and the stories they seek. Neverending Stories explores the influences of literature and computing on digital fiction and how the practices and cultures of each have impacted who makes and plays digital fiction. Popular creativity emerges from subordinated groups often excluded from producing cultural resources, accepting the materials of capitalism and inverting them for their own carnivalesque uses. Popular digital fiction goes by many different names: webnovels, adventure games, visual novels, Twitter fiction, webcomics, Twine games, walking sims, alternate reality games, virtual reality films, interactive movies, enhanced books, transmedia universes, and many more. The book establishes digital fiction in a foundation of innovation, tracing its emergence in various guises around the world. It examines Infocom, whose commercial success with interactive fiction crumbled, in no small part, because of its failure to consider women as creators or consumers. It takes note of the brief flourish of commercial book apps and literary games. It connects practices of cognitive and conceptual interactivity, and textual multiplicity-dating to the origins of the print novel-to the feminine. It pushes into the technological future of narrative in immersive and mixed realities. It posits the transmedia franchises and the practices of fanfiction as examples of digital fiction that will continue indefinitely, regardless of academic notice or approval.




Game Engine Architecture


Book Description

Hailed as a "must-have textbook" (CHOICE, January 2010), the first edition of Game Engine Architecture provided readers with a complete guide to the theory and practice of game engine software development. Updating the content to match today’s landscape of game engine architecture, this second edition continues to thoroughly cover the major components that make up a typical commercial game engine. New to the Second Edition Information on new topics, including the latest variant of the C++ programming language, C++11, and the architecture of the eighth generation of gaming consoles, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 New chapter on audio technology covering the fundamentals of the physics, mathematics, and technology that go into creating an AAA game audio engine Updated sections on multicore programming, pipelined CPU architecture and optimization, localization, pseudovectors and Grassman algebra, dual quaternions, SIMD vector math, memory alignment, and anti-aliasing Insight into the making of Naughty Dog’s latest hit, The Last of Us The book presents the theory underlying various subsystems that comprise a commercial game engine as well as the data structures, algorithms, and software interfaces that are typically used to implement them. It primarily focuses on the engine itself, including a host of low-level foundation systems, the rendering engine, the collision system, the physics simulation, character animation, and audio. An in-depth discussion on the "gameplay foundation layer" delves into the game’s object model, world editor, event system, and scripting system. The text also touches on some aspects of gameplay programming, including player mechanics, cameras, and AI. An awareness-building tool and a jumping-off point for further learning, Game Engine Architecture, Second Edition gives readers a solid understanding of both the theory and common practices employed within each of the engineering disciplines covered. The book will help readers on their journey through this fascinating and multifaceted field.