Digital Playgrounds explores the key developments, trends, debates, and controversies that have shaped children's commercial digital play spaces over the past two decades. It argues that children's online playgrounds, virtual worlds, and connected games are much more than mere sources of fun and diversion - they serve as the sites of complex negotiations of power between children, parents, developers, politicians, and other actors with a stake in determining what, how, and where children's play unfolds. Through an innovative, transdisciplinary framework combining science and technology studies, critical communication studies, and children's cultural studies, Digital Playgrounds focuses on the contents and contexts of actual technological artefacts as a necessary entry point for understanding the meanings and politics of children's digital play. The discussion draws on several research studies on a wide range of digital playgrounds designed and marketed to children aged six to twelve years, revealing how various problematic tendencies prevent most digital play spaces from effectively supporting children's culture, rights, and - ironically - play. Digital Playgrounds lays the groundwork for a critical reconsideration of how existing approaches might be used in the development of new regulation, as well as best practices for the industries involved in making children's digital play spaces. In so doing, it argues that children's online play spaces be reimagined as a crucial new form of public sphere in which children's rights and digital citizenship must be prioritized.

Solve your programming woes in Unity with practical design propositions Key Features Gain a comprehensive overview of Unity engine architecture and coding model Build a complete racing game using software design patterns and understand how to implement them in Unity Download the source code of the complete prototype demonstrating each of the software patterns used Book DescriptionThis book is written for every game developer ready to tackle the bigger picture and start working with advanced programming techniques and design patterns in Unity. Game Development Patterns with Unity 2021 is an introduction to the core principles of reusable software patterns and how to employ them to build components efficiently. In this second edition, you'll tackle design patterns with the help of a practical example; a playable racing game prototype where you'll get to apply all your newfound knowledge. Notable updates also include a game design document (GDD), a Unity programming primer, and the downloadable source code of a complete prototype. Your journey will start by learning about overall design of the core game mechanics and systems. You'll discover tried-and-tested software patterns to code essential components of a game in a structured manner, and start using classic design patterns to utilize Unity's unique API features. As you progress, you'll also identify the negative impacts of bad architectural decisions and understand how to overcome them with simple but effective practices. By the end of this Unity book, the way you develop Unity games will change - you'll adapt a more structured, scalable, and optimized process that will help you take the next step in your career. What you will learn Structure professional Unity code using industry-standard development patterns Identify the right patterns for implementing specific game mechanics or features Develop configurable core game mechanics and ingredients that can be modified without writing a single line of code Review practical object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques and learn how they're used in the context of a Unity project Build unique game development systems such as a level editor Explore ways to adapt traditional design patterns for use with the Unity API Who this book is forThis book is for Unity game developers who want to learn industry standards for building Unity games. Knowledge of the Unity game engine and programming in the C# language is a must, so if you're a beginner, try our Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 2021 handbook instead.

Get ready to learn Java the fun way by developing games for the Android platform with this new and updated third edition Key Features Learn Java, Android, and object-oriented programming from scratch Find out how to build games including Sub Hunter, Retro Pong, Bullet Hell, Classic Snake, and Scrolling Shooters Create and design your own games by learning all the concepts that a game developer must know Book DescriptionAndroid is one of the most popular mobile operating systems today. It uses the most popular programming language, Java, as one of the primary languages for building apps of all types. Unlike most other Android books, this book doesn't assume that you have any prior knowledge of Java programming, instead helps you get started with building Android games as a beginner. This new, improved, and updated third edition of Learning Java by Building Android Games helps you to build Android games from scratch. Once you've got to grips with the fundamentals, the difficulty level increases steadily as you explore key Java topics, such as variables, loops, methods, object-oriented programming (OOP), and design patterns while working with up-to-date code and supporting examples. At each stage, you'll be able to test your understanding by implementing the concepts that you've learned to develop a game. Toward the end, you'll build games such as Sub Hunter, Retro Pong, Bullet Hell, Classic Snake, and Scrolling Shooter. By the end of this Java book, you'll not only have a solid understanding of Java and Android basics but will also have developed five cool games for the Android platform. What you will learn Set up a game development environment in Android Studio Respond to a player's touch and program intelligent enemies who can challenge the player in different ways Explore collision detection, sprite sheets animation, simple tracking and following, AI, parallax backgrounds, and particle explosions Animate objects at 60 FPS and manage multiple independent objects using OOP Work with design patterns such as OOP, singleton, strategy, and entity-component Work with the Android API, the SoundPool API, Paint, Canvas, Bitmap classes, and detect version numbers Who this book is forLearning Java by Building Android Games is for anyone who is new to Java, Android, or game programming and wants to develop Android games. The book will also serve as a refresher for those who already have experience using Java on Android or any other platform but are new to game development.