What this is about

I am going to be starting a monthly column on programming games. Each month will be a chapter that when combined together will form a pair of rather extensive book on programming games. The first book (this one) will be on Java game programming, and will have its installments appearing every even month. The other book (which will have it's installments every even month) will be on Flash game programming.

I decided that this first book would be on Java for a variety of reasons. The main reason would be the cost to the user. The Java development kits are freely available. There are even some very powerful Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) that are freely available. This means that someone can learn the language and actually start creating stuff without having to invest any money into it. Then, if they find that they are serious about Java, there are a lot of high end commercial tools that they can migrate to.

The second reason is that I already have some of the work on this book done from an unfinished project that I started on my other site, but do to work demands was forced to drop. Some of you may wonder if that same situation is going to occur again. To prevent my site from being on hiatus again, I have tried to make sure I have a lot of material that I will be able to post on my site if I do get busy. To keep with this ahead of schedule mentality, I will try to be at least three to six months ahead of schedule with regard to this column. In fact, I am writing this text that you are reading in July, even though you are not scheduled to read it until September.

Who this is for

This book is aimed at anyone who is interested in creating computer games. It will start off with a quick tutorial of the Java programming language, and will then delve into the creation and development of a fairly complex game.

The Java tutorial will be designed for those familiar with other languages. If you have no programming experience, the tutorial may not provide as much information on programming as you may need. If you are finding that the tutorial is moving too fast for you, you may want to find other books on programming to better build your programming foundation. Though I am sure that there will be people who have never programmed before but who have a natural ability.

Those of you who are already familiar with java may just want to wait until the book reaches its later design and programming sections, though it never hurts to review something.