The Commercial Games Programmer's Guide

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Overall 1/5

Commercial Games Programmer's Guide Software Developments by David Gibbon [redacted] The Commercial Games Programmer's Guide states that programming is hard. Very hard in fact. You may think that sitting a Pure Maths degree was hard, but this is peanuts compared to programming. Well actually, it doesn't state anything of the kind. We just slipped that bit in to make the book appear interesting; a quality that you've doubtless realised it sadly lacks. The problem is that programmers are, by nature, astoundingly bad writers. It seems that the human brain is incapable of retaining both detailed coding knowledge and a basic grasp of English with the result that programmers are positively the worst people to use when it comes to writing manuals. Thus, by a markedly circuitous route, we come to the Guide. Harkening back to the days of yore, it's an all-formats book that covers a lot but explains nothing. For example, the author goes on at length about the importance of thinking of a good idea, then uses - wow! - a shoot-'em-up as his example game. There's a stern reminder that graphics can make or break a game - accompanied by some ugly sketches. And so on. We can't recommend this book. It reads like a first-form holiday essay and spreads itself so thin as to be transparent. Ugh.