Game Development Patterns and Best Practices: Better games, less hassle

About the Book

Utilize proven solutions to solve common problems in game development Key Features Untangle your game development workflow, make cleaner code, and create structurally solid games Implement key programming patterns that will enable you to make efficient AI and remove duplication Optimize your game using memory management techniques Book DescriptionYou’ve learned how to program, and you’ve probably created some simple games at some point, but now you want to build larger projects and find out how to resolve your problems. So instead of a coder, you might now want to think like a game developer or software engineer. To organize your code well, you need certain tools to do so, and that’s what this book is all about. You will learn techniques to code quickly and correctly, while ensuring your code is modular and easily understandable. To begin, we will start with the core game programming patterns, but not the usual way. We will take the use case strategy with this book. We will take an AAA standard game and show you the hurdles at multiple stages of development. Similarly, various use cases are used to showcase other patterns such as the adapter pattern, prototype pattern, flyweight pattern, and observer pattern. Lastly, we’ll go over some tips and tricks on how to refactor your code to remove common code smells and make it easier for others to work with you. By the end of the book you will be proficient in using the most popular and frequently used patterns with the best practices.What you will learn Learn what design patterns are and why you would want to use them Reduce the maintenance burden with well-tested, cleaner code Employ the singleton pattern effectively to reduce your compiler workload Use the factory pattern to help you create different objects with the same creation logic and reduce coding time Improve game performance with Object Pools Allow game play to interact with physics or graphics in an abstract way Refractor your code to remove common code smells Who this book is forIf you are a game developer who wants to solve commonly-encountered issues or have some way to communicate to other developers in a standardized format, then this book is for you. Knowledge of basic game programming principles and C++ programming is assumed.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Desgin Patterns
2. One to rule them all - Singletons
3. Improving on the Decorator Pattern - Component Object Model
4. Artificial Intelligence using the State Pattern
5. Decoupling code via the Factory Pattern
6. Creating objects with the Prototype Pattern
7. Improving Performance with Object Pools
8. Controlling UI via the Command Pattern
9. Achievement Unlocked ? The Observer Pattern
10. Sharing objects with the Flyweight Pattern
11. Integrating Graphics With the Fa?ade
12. Best Practices

About the Author :
John P. Doran is a passionate and seasoned technical game designer, software engineer, and author who is based in Songdo, South Korea. His passion for game development began at an early age. He graduated from DigiPen Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Game Design and a Master of Science in Computer Science from Bradley University. For over a decade, John has gained extensive hands-on expertise in game development, working in various roles ranging from game designer to lead UI programmer in teams ranging from just himself to over 70 people in student, mod, and professional game projects, including working at LucasArts on Star Wars: 1313. Additionally, John has worked in game development education teaching in Singapore, South Korea, and the United States. To date, he has authored over 10 books pertaining to game development. John is currently an Instructor at George Mason University Korea. Prior to his present ventures, he was an award-winning videographer. Matt Casanova has been programming indie games in C++, as well as mobile games and applications in Java and Objective C, for over ten years. For the last seven years he has assumed the role of technical director for his students. He specializes in 2D game engines and tools. Matt was an instructor for two years at Digipen Institute of Technology's Singapore campus, where he taught The Advanced Certification in 2D Game Development. This was a six month graduate-level course that specialized in creating 2D game engines. He then spent five years teaching undergraduate courses such as C++, data structures, and game engine architecture for Digipens degree in Real Time Interactive Simulation in South Korea. He has helped dozens of student teams make successful game projects and avoid the pitfalls of bad code. He currently works as lead mobile developer at a software company in Las Vegas.