Game Architecture And Programming

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Game Architecture and Programming introduces readers to the technologies and software engineering practices used in the game industry today. It helps readers learn the basics of creating a PC game based on DirectX. The topic is effectively branched into two parts: game architecture and game programming. The examples and programming codes are practical and interesting to implement, hence providing a very engaging readership experience. It expects the reader to be familiar with C and C++ programming and have a very basic understanding of Windows programming. Once done, the readers will be able to build their first game on Windows by writing their own graphics and logic engine. About The Author Radha Shankarmani is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Information Technology, Sardar Patel Institute of Technology, Mumbai. She is also presently pursuing her Doctorate from JNTU, Hyderabad. Her areas of interest include Software Engineering, software testing, Databases, Data Warehousing and Mining, Computer Simulation and Modeling, Management Information System and SOA. Prof Shankarmani holds a Masters degree in Computer Science and Engineering from NIT, Trichy and Bachelors degree from PSG College of Technology in Electronics and Communication Engineering. Having more than 14 years of teaching experience and 4 years of industry experience, she has held designations such as Programmer, Software Engineer and Manager. She did her sabbatical for two months in Infosys, Pune in 2005 and has coauthored a book Middleware and Enterprise Integration Technologies for Wiley India. Saurabh Jain is the Founder and CEO of two software development companies Intellista Software Studios and ThinkingSpace Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Previously, he was a software developer at Indigo Architects (I) Pvt. Ltd and has worked on a plethora of products from event management applications to products helping criminal intelligence agencies in their investigations. His expertise is in user experience and interaction design. Mr. Jain has done his B.E. in Computer Science from MES College of Engineering, Pune. Being a game development enthusiast, he along with Mr. Gaurang Sinha developed a game called Foosball which won them two state level game development competitions. He, along with Mr. Gaurang Sinha first won Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2005 (Software Development Invitational) held in India, and then went on to represent India in the World Finals of the competition held in Japan. He has also been the World Semi Finalist at the Microsoft Imagine Cup Short Film Making Invitational in 2005. Gaurang Sinha is the cofounder of the software development company ThinkingSpace Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Previously, he worked as a software developer at Indigo Architects (I) Pvt. Ltd. At ThinkingSpace Technologies, he has worked on a wide variety of projects in various domains - made social-business networking websites for TV professionals in the UK; helped build web application for a number of startups in the US and even completed a few research projects in the medical training domain. His expertise is in system architecture and application design. Mr. Sinha has completed his graduation in B.E. (Computer Science) from MES College of Engineering, Pune. During his education, he developed few small applications. One of them helped users build their own Wireless Markup Language (WML) website. This application was well received and was listed on popular online websites like Tucows and distributed in CDs packaged with computer magazines. Table of contents Part A Game Architecture 1. Core Game Design 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Game design principles 1.3 Game design process 1.4 Build the concept 1.5 Creating the game specification 1.6 Gameplay in detail 1.7 Gameplay specification Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Assignment 2. Initial Design 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Game and hardware abstraction 2.3 The problem domain 2.4 Tiers of game architecture 2.5 Tokenization Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Assignments 3. Technical Aspects of Game Design 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The state of the art 3.3 Blue-Sky research 3.4 Reinventing the wheel 3.5 Use of object technology Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Assignments 4. Building Blocks 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Game development issues 4.3 Core groups in soft ware factory and their interactions 4.4 Reusability in soft ware Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Assignment 5. Initial Architecture Design 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Architectural styles 5.3 The tier system 5.4 Architecture design 5.5 Applying tier-based approach to architecture design Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Assignments 6. Development 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The development process 6.3 Code quality 6.4 Coding priorities 6.5 Debugging and module completion 6.6 The seven golden principles of effective design 6.7 Five important aspects in game development 6.8 The three lead balloons Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Assignments Programming Assignments Part B Game Programming 7. Technologies 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Deviation from normal programming 7.3 Available game platforms 7.4 Game display technologies 7.5 DirectX and OpenGL 7.6 Tools for game development 7.7 Display systems 7.8 Game engines 7.9 User interface 7.10 Resourcecaching 7.11 The main loop Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions 8. Design Practices 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Some standard design practices in game development 8.3 Memory and its types 8.4 Optimizing memory access 8.5 Memory alignment 8.6 Virtual memory 8.7 Memory-mapped files 8.8 Naked and smart pointers 8.9 Game scripting languages Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Programming Assignment 9. Building Your Game 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Deciding on project directory structure 9.3 Creating a project in visual studio 9.4 Setting up Visual Studio build options 9.5 Source control 9.6 Popular source control soft wares 9.7 Source control best practices 9.8 Game build process Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions 10. User Interface Programming and Input Devices 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Getting the device state 10.3 Recommended practices while working with the mouse 10.4 Working with the keyboard 10.5 User interface components 10.6 More control properties Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Programming Assignment 11. 2D Drawing and DirectX 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Setting up Visual Studio to work with DirectX 11.3 Graphics hardware 11.4 2D drawing using DirectX 11.5 2D drawing concepts 11.6 Sprites 11.7 Graphic file formats 11.8 Differences in storage of 16-bit color information Summary Key Terms and Concepts Review Questions Programming Assignments