Best Java Book

[alexl]

Hey all,

I'm looking to get a Java Gaming Book. Could you all recommend your favorites?

The type of game I'm trying to make is a 2d birdseye, grid game.

Please post here with your ideas.

By the way, I hope this isn't in the wrong category, I've noticed that you're strict about that lol.

[shawnkendall]

Shameless plug...(a' la "The Critic")
Buy my book, buy my book...

At least the authors frequent these forums and can respond here. :-)

http://www.charlesriver.com/titles/javagame.html

[bwbrooklyn]

I loved David Brackeen's book Developing Games in Java.

You can check out the preview of my game based on his code under the Your Games Here section. Go to the thread Misadventures of mads.

I picked up the book before Shawnkendall's came out (or at least before I had seen it). I have been looking through his book though and like it. I'll probably pick it up soon.  I like his examples of using interfaces and plan to rewrite my brackeen based code to use more interfaces in places where Brackeen used inheritance.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[alexl]

Does brackeen's say anything about hawkeye grid games?

[alexl]

oops, shawn does yours have anything bout hawkeye grid games?

[bwbrooklyn]

"hawkeye grid"? I'm not familiar with the term. What is it?

[oNyx]

"hawkeye grid"? I'm not familiar with the term. What is it?

He just means top down... 2d... grid... stuff

[alexl]

indeed lol sorry for my lack of proper terminology

[smbell]

I also recommend Brackeen's book.  It does not specifically cover '2d birdseye' style games, it's main example is a 2d side-scroller, but it covers enough general information that it should be a simple switch (really if you don't implement gravity and scroll in more than one direction you have it).  I based a fair portion of my game (molez-resurrection) on his code.  You could look at my code, but I don't think it would hold any great revelations.  It is still very ugly and buggy, mainly because I haven't had much time lately.

[smbell]

P.S.  My game is not an top down 2d game, but more like a side-scroller

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[phazer]

Before you read any other Java book, read and understand "Effective Java". It will help you with all Java programming, including games...

[baegsi]

Before you read any other Java book, read and understand "Effective Java". It will help you with all Java programming, including games...

Agreed, but you have to know Java quite well before you can understand that stuff

[alexl]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I ended up ordering up brackeen's book, but haven't received it yet.

How in depth is it? I was somewhat surprised to see the page count ( 1008 ).

edit: 1008 became a smily lol

[smbell]

You'll probably only need about the first half of the book to get you going.  It is pretty deep, towards the end he walks through building a 3D render engine, based off of Java2D basically from scratch (if I remember right, been a little while).

Another book I've seen recently, but haven't read, is By Daniel Sánchez-Crespo Dalmau called Core Techniques and Algorithms in Game Programming.  Like I said I haven't read it but it looks pretty good.  If anybody has read this one is it good?