Games Programming for the Absolute Beginner with Blitzmax

Have you ever wanted to program your own computer games? Never felt that you could? Well now you can! This easy-to-read-and-follow book takes you through the steps to create high-speed 2D "retro" style games. There are three projects included that produce full games. All the source code is included within the book - and it's downloadable from our web site too. BlitzMax is a modern object-oriented computer language based upon the BASIC programming language. It's really easy to use, and you'll be programming your favourite games in no time! Not got a PC? Don't like to run Windows? Not a problem! BlitzMax is available for the Mac and for Linux users too! So, not only will you be able to write a cool game, you can share it with almost 100 per cent of computer users! BlitzMax is available for PCs running Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Table of Contents:
CHAPTER 1 What is a Video Game? Who am I? What is a computer game? Shoot 'em Up Puzzle Platformer Simulation Maze Educational Games The Rise of Retro Games CHAPTER 2 Computer Architecture Input Process Output The Computer System Computer Memory Disk Random Access Memory Read Only Memory Cache The Hardware / Software Stack Peripherals Keyboard Mouse Screen Resolution CHAPTER 3 Computer Numbering The Decimal System The Binary System Binary Numbering Groups of Binary Digits Groups of Bytes Hexadecimal Larger Numbers CHAPTER 4 How BlitzMax Works Computers Can't Read English Translating English to Computerese (Machine Code) Compilation Process Application / Game / Program How do we access the compiler? CHAPTER 5 The BlitzMax IDE Launching the IDE Menu Bar Tool Bar The Tab Panel Editing Insert File Operations Save Close Open Clipboard Cut Undo Getting Help Getting further help The Great Escape - Bat and Ball Introduction Game Elements Creating the Graphic Elements Introducing the GIMP Windows Installation Creating the game artifacts Game Program Sections Initial Setup The Main Loop Starting the Game Giving the Player Feedback Extra credits CHAPTER 6 Variables, Constants and Literals Variables Variable Types Variable Names Variable Types Variable Values Why Do We Use Variables? Variable Scope Literals Constants Bringing it All Together Arrays Declaring an Array Accessing Elements CHAPTER 7 Changing Variables Arithmetic Operators The Plus Operator The Minus Operator The Multiplication Operator The Divide Operator The Mod Operator Operators so far Using the Colon String Methods Find FindLast Trim Replace ToLower ToUpper ToInt ToLong ToFloat ToDouble ToCString ToWString Boolean Mathematics The And Operator The Or Operator The Not Operator The Exclusive Or Operator CHAPTER 8 Going With The Flow Simple Decisions Testing for Equality Using Boolean Logic Nesting Ifs Select Case Iteration - Making the Computer Repeat Itself The For Loop For EachIn...Next While / Wend Repeat...Until Repeat...Forever Exit Continue A Note on Exit and Continue CHAPTER 9 Finding the Bugs Stopping Execution Printing Output Other Debug Methods CHAPTER 10 130 Reusing Code with Functions Where would I use a function? Declaring a simple function Drawing a line Specifying Parameters Optional Parameters Extending existing keywords Returning values from functions Recursion Returning multiple values CHAPTER 11 Using the File System Reading a Directory CurrentDir ChangeDir LoadDir FileType CreateDir DeleteDir File Manipulation OpenFile ReadLine Eof CloseStream WriteLine Tank Attak! Two Player Tank Action File Locations Tank Graphics Bullet Graphics Tile Graphics Hit Graphic Screen Design Organising the Files The Main Program TankAttak.bmx TankAttak.bmx Inside the classes.bmx File There is Method in the Madness classes.bmx The Map Files Map 1 - map1.txt Map 2 - map2.txt Map 3 - map3.txt CHAPTER 12 OOPs! In BlitzMax What is an Object? What is a Class? What is an Attribute? What is a Method? What is the Difference between an Object and a Class? What Is Inheritance? What Is an Interface? Classes in BlitzMax Defining a User Defined Type A Simple Class Consts and Globals or Static Attributes Inheritance and Polymorphism A Simple Object Polymorphism Self and Super New and Delete Abstract and Final Differences between Abstract and Inheritance Project Management of Classes and Support Files Include IncBin CHAPTER 13 Drawing on the Screen Graphics Modes CountGraphicsModes GraphicsModeExists(width, height, depth=0, hertz=0) Graphics(width, height, colour_depth, frequency) EndGraphics GraphicsWidth and GraphicsHeight GetGraphics Flip Cls SetClsColor GetClsColor SetColor Drawing Simple Objects Plot DrawRect DrawLine DrawOval DrawPoly DrawText Images Images and BlitzMax LoadImage LoadAnimImage DrawImage TileImage SetViewport GetViewport Moving Things - Mouse MouseX and MouseY Showing and Hiding the System Mouse MouseZ MouseDown MouseHit WaitMouse MoveMouse Fonts LoadImageFont SetImageFont GetImageFont Example of Font Use in BlitzMax CHAPTER 14 Input, Need Input! KeyDown KeyHit WaitKey WaitChar GetChar Moving Things - Joystick Joystick Information JoyCount JoyName JoyAxisCaps JoyButtonCaps Getting Direction Common Input Routine The Classes TStick and TKeyboard TStickFire and TKeyFire Sample Application using Controller.bmx CHAPTER 15 When Worlds Collide Simple Collisions The First Rule - Collision Detection How does Collision Detection Work? A Simple Game CHAPTER16 OpenGL Special Effects Rotating Images SetRotation Scaling Images Collisions Revisited Blending Modes Paratroops! Another Retro Game..? Paratroops.bmx Controller.bmx TParatroopGame.bmx Create (Function) CheckCollisions DrawScore DrawLanded Draw Update DoQuit DoGameOver DrawOutline GameLoop TGameBackdrop.bmx TParatrooper.bmx TParatrooper TTroops TDome.bmx TBullet TDome Some Tricky Maths CHAPTER 17 Sound Effects and Music WAV OGG BlitzMax and Sound BlitzMax Sound Example Altering the Paratroops! Game Collisions Playing the Music CHAPTER 18 Putting it All Together Game Design What's the big idea? So what is "Flood"? Storyboarding Writing a specification for a game Flood Game Specification Entities Next steps Object Oriented Design Introduction Use Cases What is a Use Case? Sample Use Case What is the purpose of Use-Cases? Class Diagrams A DVDRecorder Class relationships Aggregation and composition Inheritance Chapter 19 Implementing OOP Where do we get the methods from? Player Enemy Platform Orchid Wave Putting it all together TFloodGame Converting Class Diagrams to UDTs Stub code for TFloodGame Testing Modules Testing the code Creating stub code Project Management Using the Include keyword Example Include from the finished game Advantages of using the Include keyword Embedding binary resources Chapter 20 Complete Source Code for all the Projects Appendix A - Essential Links Appendix B - Graphic Packages Appendix C - Controller.bmx Appendix C - Key Codes Index