2D games for Teens - Your views

#1 i was thinking about picking this up also, already have all the other books on torque , thought this 2d version might fall in pretty well. so i would like some advice on purchasing this or not also :)

#2 (hopes this does not go down a bad road)

I read through the book. I think it is a decent introduction to 2D game development for teens are 100% brand new to the field.

Would I recommend it to my friend's son (13)? Sure, if he is interested in the field.

Would I have reworked examples and points? Yes, but I'm a stickler for proper correlations.

Is it a definitive TGB book? No, not at all. It does not leverage the true power of TGB, which includes using behaviors or polishing a simple game.

#3 Im 24 so would not really be classed as a teen but I do have the one for 3d torque and that one does seem really good.

I have ordered so only time will tell. I do think it looks very good, will tell all my views once it arrives :)

The way im looking at it, any education is better than no education :)

Thanks for the replies

#4 Hi, I received the book a couple of days ago and thought I would give my views so far.

I have not read it all but I have not put it down whenever I could pick it up :) It is really good and informative. It does look like it provides a complete tutorial on creating a shooter game so very much worth a read!

The start of the book also covers aspects of the industry, so worth a read to anyone looking to get started :)

#5 I'm currently reading this book, I'm stuck at ch. 6 for giving basic controls to an image.

There was a few things that bugged me about the book. Not sure if there are different versions of the book but just to let you know ahead of time. I had zero experience with Adobe Illustrator which caused me some problems.

Page 88, ch4. "Making the Hearse"
-Step #4 has you literally connect the dots to trace over the image. Click point 1, click and hold point 2 then drag and release at the star to get a smooth bend.

I also had problems assembling the individual traces into one peice, not sure how I finally got it to work.

Page 150, ch 6 "Programming Batty to Fly"
I have a thread going for this at the moment. Hopefully you can find this helpful once I get it resolved, if it was something in the book or something I did. Link to thread Click Here

#6 I almost thought about buying it too since I am dying for good information on TGB. Although I figured that it might be better just to continue working through the tutorials. We're getting better information but it is slow getting there.

#7 Saw this thread and thought I'd throw my two cents in. I wouldn't suggest buying it at all. The book has some great information on game design and seems pretty good at first, but once you get into the included 'tutorials' and code, you find it riddled with syntax and spelling errors. I spent a ton of time going through code and trying to fix it and half the time I couldn't get anything to work. Assuming you are an experienced coder, it's probably not that hard to figure out what is wrong, but considering this book is geared towards the new coder, it's just not pretty.

I wrote up a pretty lengthy writeup of the book and my experiences with it as I went through it in my blog starting with this post. I honestly think the book could be a great intro book to TGB if there wasn't all the coding/syntax errors. I'd suggest waiting to see if they come out with a second edition that cleans all of it up.

#8 I think we're seriously hurting for a good book on TGB. The program has been out how long and this is all anyone can put together?

#9 I flipped through it and i feel was way too newbish. Not worth it. I think you will learn more just doing the tutorials that reading this book.

Can anyone just write a book for TGB? Who is going to step up? :/ We do need a good one.