The Game Maker’s Companion is the title of Jacob Habgood’s follow-up book to the successful The Game Maker’s Apprentice.
Earlier in the year Jacob asked for suggestions as to what a second, more advanced, book should include. Companion is due to be released in April 2010 and publishers APress have recently released some information about the book.
“It picks up exactly where the last book left off, advancing your game development journey with a range of awe-inspiring Game Maker projects. This time the book focuses on the diverse theme of platform games: the game genre that defined the 2D era.
- Introduces a platform game extension to Game Maker that allows sophisticated platform games to be programmed quickly and easily using drag-and-drop programming
- Shows you how to recreate classic ’90s games like Zool, using resources from the original game (and interviews with the original designer)
- Uses adventure-based platform games to teach you to create compelling storylines and convincing characters that will add enormously to the appeal of your games
- Includes the new 8.0 version of Game Maker and makes full use of its latest features, and offers inside information from the creator of Game Maker itself
What You’ll Learn:
- How to use the platform game extension to create simple platform games
- How to create more elaborate platform games using Zool as a practical example
- How to make a level editor that allows you to play and edit your games at the same time
- How to create the basic game mechanics for a pirate platform game
- How to use storylines to provide flow and a sense of purpose to the game
- How to design game characters that have depth and believability
- How to modify game artwork for your own games
- Bring together a number of example levels alongside the story
- How to create simple hierarchies (using the WiiWare game Outnumb3r3d as an example)
- How to build a thrilling, action-packed conclusion to your game”
-APress
You can pre-order the book on Amazon using the following affiliate links: US $32.57
, UK £24.01
. Amazon’s pre-order price guarantee means that if the price comes down prior to the book launch you pay the new lower price.
Yeah, I’m really looking a forward to this book!
Problem is, it was due last month! When is it going to come out now?
finally, i have been looking everywhere for the next book on from the game maker’s apprentice and here it is!! this is great news!!
🙂 🙂 🙂
Nice! I’ll buy this too. Actually, technically the first book didn’t helped me, I might be called a programmer expert (I work 15+ years as a programmer in my daily job), but it helped me tons in game design theory! You never know which part might be helpful!
I always wondered when will come a book for intermediate users, and here it is! 🙂
Book costs more than the software it’s for?
There are two links to Amazon in the post.
This is very (hab)good news.
Haha what?
Nice 😉