The Game Maker's Apprentice shows you how to create nine exciting games using the wildly popular Game Maker game creation tool. This book covers a range of genres, including action, adventure, and puzzle games-complete with professional quality sound effects and visuals. It discusses game design theory and features practical examples of how this can be applied to making games that are more fun to play.Game Maker allows games to be created using a simple drag-and-drop interface, so you don't need to have any prior coding experience. It includes an optional programming language for adding advanced features to your games, when you feel ready to do so. You can obtain more information by visiting book.gamemaker.nl.
The authors include the creator of the Game Maker tool and a former professional game programmer, so you'll glean understanding from their expertise. The book also includes a CD containing Game Maker software and all of the game projects that are created in the book-plus a host of professional-quality graphics and sound effects that you can use in your own games.
Author Information
Jacob Habgood
Jacob Habgood worked in the UK Games Industry for seven years, writing console games for Gremlin Interactive and Infogrames/Atari. During this time he contributed to a wide range of titles and lead the programming teams on MicroMachines (PS2, X-Box and Game Cube) and Hogs of War (PlayStation). Jacob is now a doctoral student at the University of Nottingham, researching the educational potential of computer games. As part of this research, Jacob runs clubs and workshops teaching children and teenagers how to make their own computer games, providing free activities and resourcesthrough his website: www.gamelearning.net.
Mark Overmars
Mark Overmars is a full professor in Computer Science at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Here he heads the center for Advanced Gaming and Simulation. One of his research domains is computer games. He is one of the founders of the Utrecht Platform for Game Education and Research and teaches courses on computer game design at Utrecht University. Mark is the author of many software packages. In particular, he is the author of the Game Maker software package which will be used as development tool in this book.
