Comments on: The Game Developer’s Bookshelf

By: Tom Ortega

Tom Ortega — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:48:50 +0000

I have to agree 100% on Jesse’s book. Just his writing style alone is worth the price of the book. The fact that it’s amazing content makes it that much better.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Someday, Jesse and I are gonna sit down for lunch and become great friends. Two birds of a feather gotta flock together someday. LOL

By: George

George — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:17:02 +0000

That makes a lot of sense. I had a few months working with Cocoa when it first came out, and have worked with more languages than I care to remember, so I forget what a speed bump a new language can be. The good news is that both books are available on Safari, which is a great resource when you’re tackling a new technology.

By: Markus Nigrin

Markus Nigrin — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 02:00:19 +0000

@George that might actually be the point. I had no experience with C/C++ going into this (believe it or not. I was always a Delphi for Windows guy) so the basic language introduction of the Kochan book was very helpful to me. It has chapters on writing iPhone apps and getting you started, so that was not a problem.
I saw incidentally today that there is a 2nd edition available now and one of the reviewers stated that he read “Beginning iPhone 3…” and then the Kochan book and should have done it the other way around. That’s exactly what I would recommend, it’s a complex start and both books really complement each other.

By: George

George — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:03:00 +0000

Thanks for the comments guys. I think I’ve just added a few new books to my wish list

@Miguel – RTR almost made it onto the list, but I was running short of time to post (you slavemaster!). I bought the first edition and it’s great. It’s nice that the web site is up to date with lots of interesting info too. I’ll have to look into the collision detection book, sounds useful.

@Erick – A 4-hour work week sounds handy Is it based around setting a business up in your spare time? I’ll look into it.

@Markus – That’s an interesting comment about “Beginning iPhone 3 Development”. I found it an ideal starter. Possibly you’ve identified a flaw though, in that it (by necessity) covers Obj-C very lightly. I’ve tended to avoid Obj-C as much as possible, favouring C++ code for most of my logic, so I haven’t had too much trouble. Does the Kochan book cover Mac development at all? Or is it a ‘pure’ Obj-C book?

By: Markus Nigrin

Markus Nigrin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:07:00 +0000

Love your list!
Just starting to develop for the iPhone myself and starting with “Beginning iPhone 3 Development” (and somewhat struggling with it), I found that “Programming in Objective-C 2.0″ by Stephen Kochan was a better beginners book for me.
I find it really hard to explain why, but style, pace, build-up and the examples used made it just more straightforward for me to read and understand. This is probably a very personal choice so I recommend using Amazon’s preview function to find what you might like better. And if you are only looking for a second book to complement “Beginning iPhone 3…”, then definitely check out Kochan’s book.

By: Erick Garayblas

Erick Garayblas — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:05:38 +0000

I’m a bookworm too and I will definitely check out your recommendations, thanks! I must admit that I’m more of a business book lover though and here are my contributions: The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss (great for indie devs and people who are struggling between a day-job and indie work) and Web Copy That Sells by Maria Veloso (if you’re serious into app marketing and need help creating your app descriptions, product pages and press releases).

By: Miguel Á Friginal

Miguel Á Friginal — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 05:32:10 +0000

OK, I will bite But will only list two that are coming pretty handy lately and one that is not about programming.

First, “Real-Time Rendering” by Akenine-Möller et all, a must-have for anybody working on game graphics. Covers all the basics and 3rd edition is pretty up-to-date with the latest techniques: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568814240

Second, “Real-Time Collision Detection” by Christer Ericson. The Spatial Partitioning section only is already worth the price of the whole book. Any game programmer wanting to implement its own optimized collision code will find invaluable the depth of the many techniques discussed: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1558607323

Finally, and since I wrote recently about going out of the video-game realm to find inspiration for your games, “Hobby Games, the 100 Best”, edited by James Lowder. This is a compilation of 100 reviews written by game designers about the board games, card games, and role-playing games they love. After reading this book you get a completely new appreciation for both the games and the designers, plus the best advice for shopping tabletop games you can get: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1932442960