Book Image

Beginning C++ Game Programming - Second Edition

By : John Horton
Book Image

Beginning C++ Game Programming - Second Edition

By: John Horton

Overview of this book

The second edition of Beginning C++ Game Programming is updated and improved to include the latest features of Visual Studio 2019, SFML, and modern C++ programming techniques. With this book, you’ll get a fun introduction to game programming by building five fully playable games of increasing complexity. You’ll learn to build clones of popular games such as Timberman, Pong, a Zombie survival shooter, a coop puzzle platformer and Space Invaders. The book starts by covering the basics of programming. You’ll study key C++ topics, such as object-oriented programming (OOP) and C++ pointers, and get acquainted with the Standard Template Library (STL). The book helps you learn about collision detection techniques and game physics by building a Pong game. As you build games, you’ll also learn exciting game programming concepts such as particle effects, directional sound (spatialization), OpenGL programmable shaders, spawning objects, and much more. Finally, you’ll explore game design patterns to enhance your C++ game programming skills. By the end of the book, you’ll have gained the knowledge you need to build your own games with exciting features from scratch
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
23
Chapter 23: Before You Go...

FAQ

Here are some questions that might be on your mind:

Q) I am struggling with the content that’s been presented so far. Am I cut out for programming?

A) Setting up a development environment and getting your head around OOP as a concept is probably the toughest thing you will do in this book. As long as your game is functioning (drawing the background), you are ready to proceed with the next chapter.

Q) All this talk of OOP, classes, and objects is too much and kind of spoiling the whole learning experience.

A) Don’t worry. We will keep returning to OOP, classes, and objects constantly. In Chapter 6, Object-Oriented Programming – Starting the Pong Game, we will really begin getting to grips with the whole OOP thing. All you need to understand for now is that SFML have written a whole load of useful classes and that we get to use this code by creating usable objects from those classes.

Q) I really don’t get this function stuff.

A) It doesn’t matter; we will be returning to it again constantly and will learn about functions more thoroughly. You just need to know that, when a function is called, its code is executed, and when it is done (reaches a return statement), the program jumps back to the code that called it.