I want to go. I love you dad, and I will be happy if I can achieve only half of what you have! |
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I would like to thank Chris Denny for giving me another opportunity to ramble about game programming. A big thanks also goes to Angelique Brittingham for her initial guidance and for treating me to artichoke lasagna.
I'd like to thank the love of my life, Mahsheed, whose jaw was dismantled during much of the development of this book, but who remained incredibly supportive, as always. I love you, girl!
I would also like to thank my parents, who have always encouraged and supported my nerdly interests-I love and miss you lots.
An enormous thanks goes to Dr. James Bertz for seeing to it that Mahsheed stayed healthy throughout her jaw surgery, for educating me about the finer points of orthognathic surgery, and for just being an all-around good person.
A big thanks goes to Greg Turner for his incredibly gracious help in putting together the network code for the NetConnect4 applet. Also, thanks to Sven Wiebus and Keith Pomakis, who were willing to let me rip apart their Connect4 AI code. And thanks to Jonathan Hardwick for his valuable information on Java optimization.
Finally, thanks to my friends in Nashville who are far away but definitely not forgotten: Keith, Heath, Mehrdad, Paul, Justin, Randy, Mike, Shawn, Travis, and Sarah. I miss you guys!
Michael Morrison is a contributing author of Tricks of the Java Programming Gurus and Java Unleashed, and the co-author of Windows 95 Game Developer's Guide Using the Game SDK. He currently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with his now almost legal partner in life, Mahsheed. When not glued to his computer, Michael enjoys skateboarding, mountain biking, and committing flagrant fouls in basketball. You can contact Michael at [email protected], or visit his Web site at http://www.thetribe.com.
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Now that the initial hype surrounding Java is starting to settle down, many developers are sitting around wondering what's next. So we have this really cool technology, but now what? The next logical step for Java programmers is to branch out and start applying their newfound skills to specific areas. One such area that has always intrigued me is games. Having a natural interest in games, I decided to apply my Java skills toward seeing what types of games could be written in Java. You're now holding the results of my experiment!
It turned out that even though Java has its weaknesses (namely in the area of performance), it is actually a very competent game development language. It is so competent, in fact, that after finishing the first sample game for this book, I wanted to distance myself from C++. If you are a C++ programmer interested in writing games in Java, this book is for you. However, a knowledge of C++ is by no means a prerequisite for this book. In fact, it is targeted toward beginning and intermediate Java programmers who are looking for some fun ways to use Java. Even if you aren't a programmer at all, you might find this book useful as a guide to incorporating games and entertainment into your Web site.
Throughout this book, you learn about game programming from a very Web-centric perspective. This is only natural because Java is very Web-centric itself. You learn all about the unique benefits (and drawbacks) of developing Internet games in Java for the Web, accompanied by plenty of source code that you can reuse on your own projects. More specifically, you learn about the following major issues related to Internet game programming with Java:
These topics are covered throughout 21 lessons; hence the title, Teach Yourself Internet Game Programming with Java in 21 Days! Over a three-week period, you move from learning the fundamentals of Java game programming to writing three complete games and a variety of other sample applets. The sample games include high-speed animation, sound, and network support for multiple players. By the end of this book, you'll be ready to build your own Internet Java games from scratch. By the way, all you need to build the sample games is the Java Developer's Kit, which is included on the CD-ROM. Good luck and have fun…I sure did!