Writting a book on game development

[WILL]

Has anyone thought of writting a book on game development with Delphi/Kylix, Free Pascal or any or all of the above?

Honestly, I've seen 2 books that were released and not much else. I seriously think thats what we could use to promote the community. And get others into the fold.

[cairnswm]

I would love to get involved in a project like this. I wanted to do it about 18 months ago but basically chickened out

It could be done as a set of formalized tutorials - think of it as an online course where each 'course' stream would create a set of online e-books.

So how do we get it going??

[Traveler]

Because of my (extensive) tutorials about delphiX, I've had several people asking me to consider writing a book. But next to the fact that DelphiX probably isn't the right package to base a book on (although I probably could convert them to any other package), I simply don't have the time.

Right now I'm working on the new PGDev website nearly every spare hour I have. Like many of my projects it's taking far more time that I origionally thought it would take. (Not that its a problem the more time I spend on it, the better it gets). Point is, I've come to realise that I can't work on more than one project at the time. And to be honest, I'm dying to get my hands dirty again on a new game project. (Not that that is going to happen soon, I promised to finish a few other old projects first).

[WILL]

Well your idea seem great cairnswm, though I think that a published solid copy would benifit those that go to the book shelves aswell. However that may depend on the publisher aswell.

:!: DelphiX would not be the best thing to base a book upon at all. In fact I don't think that any specific API should be focused upon at all. Prehaps a chapter or two on SDL, OpenGL and DirectX may be an idea for a 'Beginner Level' book, but anyone seriously thinking of buying a book for the use of developing high-end games would be interested in another one of these books. Something more in-depth like algorythims and methods of more advanced game design would be much much more helpful.

The idea of a series wouldn't be bad like that of Premier Press' 'Game Development Series' that is quite popular as of late. I also believe that it should be non-compiler specific aswell. In fact having a bit of an insight to the different 'Pascal' compilers might also be warrented aswell. Though we'd have to specify what language the example source would be listed in.

[size=9px]ie. Lets say you were writting a portion about using Object Models in your game and were specifying a part of code to illustrate your method. You'd have maybe 2 figures each with either Object Pascal or Pascal(Free Pascal's variation) of what you were trying to illustrate.[/size]

Also improper referances to Delphi as a language it's self should be eliminated completely as we don't want to confuse an already 'bias and confssion-latten' base of programmers as it is. We should set the record straight for them in our own efforts.

:idea: I like cairnswm's idea mainly because a single book wouldn't do much of us as much good as some comprehensive series that we could grow our own experience from the first one we pick-up. The only issue is, what area of programming should we start in? :idea:

I think that using Object Pascal's object classes in writting would be a great start. How many articles, tutorials or times have you heard people just talking about getting further into the fundimentials or more advanced aspects of game programming instead of lightly brushing on a set of APIs and treating them like the Holy Grail to making games with a specific Pascal compiler? I say we, as a community of programmers aim higher.


After that potentially long-winded set of my personal oppinions, here is my list of potential book ideas for someone to write for the avid Pascal game programmer. Please expand on there is you can.


The List:

:arrow: Game Design Under Pascal [size=9px](using Pascal based Object Models and Game-State engines)[/size]
:arrow: 3D Games with Object Pascal [size=9px](concentrate on not only 1 but all 3D graphics APIs each having it's own chapter or more to demonstrate eaches interfaces and ways of doing things, plus focus on formats and considerations of 3D game programming at large)[/size]
:arrow: Isometric game Engines in (Object)Pascal [size=9px](Obviously covering all aspects of the Isometric game engine and how to works)[/size]
:arrow: Design a Great Multiplayer Game! [size=9px](All sorts of informaton on how to design an online game with (Object)Pascal)[/size]
:arrow: Cross-Platform games [size=9px](Maybe the least exstensive of my little list, but it can cover how to do cross-platform game development with Delphi/Kylix and/or Free Pascal; ie. things like installers, APIs available, OS enviroment differences, tricks, etc)[/size]

[cairnswm]

You definitly missed:

:arrow: 2D game programming with Pascal

I would be very happy to join any team that wants to do this. I'd even be prepared to run the team if we have enough people wanting to contribute.

[Ultra]

If the goal (at least one of many) of this book is to prove that Pascal is as capable as C++ in creating games I think it should be about 3D rather than 2D simply because it's considered to be more advanced. With that said I'm personally not sure if I'd like a book on 3D better than one on 2D.

Also focusing on more than one Pascal dialect might be a bit hazardous. The book will be harder to read since you have to check which dialect the example code use (even if we make it clear it's gonna be harder, though maybe not too much :?). Another problem is the differences in the dialects, if we have an example in FreePascal dialect then the reader may not be able to understand how to convert it to the Delphi dialect. Last point is that if this if gonna be a community written book then it might not be a good idea to force everyone that contributes to learn several new dialects...

Another thought. Would this book be about creating the next Quake and using Pascal to show how to do it or show that Pascal is the only way to do it (i.e. will the focus be on the algorithms or the language)? I know this can't be answered right now but it must be know before anyone starts to write.

Oh, and someone seemed to miss:
:arrow: AI for Games using Pascal
:arrow: Create your next Game Scripting Language with Pascal (I'd definitely would want one of these )

[cairnswm]

Most game dev books look at the beginner game developer. We could maybe do something like

Free Game Development with Pascal

And focus on FreePascal and aim at people who want to create games without spending any money.

[Robert Kosek]

:lol: I'd buy it!! I've been looking for stuff like that ... but since "pascal isn't a game programming language" OI! Every C/C++ guy I've talked with spouts the same junk about pascal, let's show 'em who's got the power!

Not that I could write something like that. Golly, I can't even write a complete simplistic game. ops:

[noeska]

There is no game withoud sound, so it should have chapter that deals with sound. The options for freepascal are: openal and sdl.

Also no game without some sort of collision detection.

Title suggestion:
Game Developement with Object-Pascal

It should minimal show
- available compilers
- 2D
- 3D
- Sound
- GUI
- File Acces - File Formats
- AI
- Collision (2D-3D)
- Game engine flow

Also i think classes should be used whenever posible showing classes with inheritance. (The Power of Object-Pascal)

The danger is that there are lots of topics needed for game developement and each of them justifies for its own book.

I would be willing to write a chapter on sound programming.

[cairnswm]

Sorry, a single chapter on Sound Programming just isn't enough

We want ast least 3 chapters from everyone. How about doing something on 3D collision detection

3D programming would need to include model loading

Robert - we all had to start somewhere - have you tried writing Hangman yet? Its a great place to start! Or try do something like my Barbar game (I did it day before yesterday again to test FreePascla and VGFX - got it as far as making him run and die and then decided that was enough).