{"id":19202,"date":"2019-07-29T00:01:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T00:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19202"},"modified":"2019-07-23T21:02:29","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T21:02:29","slug":"classic-game-design-from-pong-to-pac-man-with-unity-second-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/29\/classic-game-design-from-pong-to-pac-man-with-unity-second-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Game Design: From Pong to Pac-Man With Unity, Second Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Earlier this year when I went to PAX South, one of the booths I set up a meeting with was Mercury Learning Books.\u00a0 They publish all sorts of educational reading material about how to make games and other electronics.\u00a0 I reviewed a few of those books a while back, which you can read about here<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 I think my favorite of the books I reviewed was Classic Game Design: From Pong to Pac-Man With Unity.\u00a0 It was written by the same guy who made the Atari arcade classic Crystal Castles, and it was written so well that I bet I\u2019d be able to make classic arcade styled games if I followed the steps in the book.\u00a0 One of the things I was worried about is if the information would become outdated in the books, but I guess I don\u2019t have to worry about it anymore because they made a second edition of it!\u00a0 The Mercury Learning folks sent me that book, too, so I think I\u2019ll do a quick review of it as well.<\/p>\n

The book introduces you to classic arcade games as well as the programs you\u2019ll download to code your own.\u00a0 These include free versions of Unity, Javascript, GIMP, Blender, Audacity, and more to create graphics and sound.\u00a0 The book explains how to download and install them, too.\u00a0 Each subsequent chapter features a different classic arcade game, like Pong, Breakout, Space Invaders, Scramble, and Pac-Man.\u00a0 After a brief introduction of each game, the book goes on to explain how to code your own versions of those titles with step by step directions.\u00a0 It concludes with an index of other tools and instructions to use when coding, as well as an included DVD with files that will be useful as you read and learn.\u00a0 Here is a bigger picture of the front of the book.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The only problem I had with this book as well as the first edition is that while they say you don\u2019t need to know anything about coding and programming to use it, I think I\u2019d prefer to have some prior knowledge of those programs, just for my own sake.\u00a0 For instance, if I made a mistake in the code I just copied from the book, how I would I know where to look for the error?\u00a0 Also I don\u2019t know how much room for creativity they give you in this book when coding.\u00a0 But even so, if I didn\u2019t have a full time job and needed to sleep, I\u2019d definitely try and make the games found in this book.\u00a0 I think I could do it!\u00a0 So if you\u2019ve ever wanted to dabble in creating your own classic games, this book is a good place to start.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really have time to compare page by page to see what\u2019s different in the first and second editions, but there is one obvious difference in the second one.\u00a0 The pictures are in full color!\u00a0 They really make the images pop, and give the book an even more professional feel.\u00a0 I used to be in the printing business, so I know how expensive color is, so I\u2019m really impressed they did this.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an example of one of the color pages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s really it.\u00a0 If you have an interest in making games, programming, or other electronics, I\u2019d suggest checking out Mercury Learning Books.\u00a0 They\u2019d make a great companion to any college student\u2019s computer curriculum (college professors should look into these books, too), and I\u2019ve been impressed with the ones I\u2019ve seen so far!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year when I went to PAX South, one of the booths I set up a meeting with was Mercury Learning Books.\u00a0 They publish all sorts of educational reading material about how to make games and other electronics.\u00a0 I reviewed a few of those books a while back, which you can read about here.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19203,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19202\/revisions\/19203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}