Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus/Book and Cd-Rom

by André LaMothe

Outlines the basic and advanced principles involved in creating interactive games, including flight simulators, three-dimensional walk-through games, and various multimedia utilities, with an accompanying CD that includes shareware games and commercial demos. Original. (All Users).

Genres: Computers, Programming, Reference

Paperback

First published July 1, 1994

Reviews

[Amy Ransohoff]

Note to self: looks old/outdated, but should have info about old-school raytracing in resource-constrained systems.

[Mark Stattelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have the 1994 edition. Bought it brand new with disc. I used to stay up all night reading through this book and dreaming. I couldn't afford the compiler to run the code. Nor did I have a computer with enough memory or speed. I only had a 486sx (not even the dx with the math coprocessor).
I had an IBM PS1 Consultant. 4 or 8 megs of RAM. that I bought in '91 for like $1,200 (by the time I added all of the accessories and printer, etc.). Later added an external CD ROM drive kit that I ordered from DAK. I think I paid around $300 for that. I was proud of that computer though. First real computer that I ever owned. Windows 3.11 I believe.
Of course, I had owned a Texas Instruments TI99 back in the day. And then a Commodore 64. But like I said, the 486sx was the first "real" computer, though the others had been fun to play with.
I'll have to look, but I want to say this book came with a full copy of Doom on the disc. I never was a big Doom fan though. I did love Wolfenstein 3D. Mostly, I was interested in the code behind the games and it was sheer torture to not be able to experiment. Didn't have the big bucks.

[Tim Chase · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but rather dated now

[Fortyseven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite outdated in 2015. Touches on older technology including simple Wolfenstein-style raycasting. There's much better educational resources out there nowadays.