Containing interviews with the developers of 36 of the coolest games in video game history from Deus Ex and Night Trap to Mortal Kombat, Wasteland and NBA Jam, The Minds Behind the Games gives you an inside look at how some of the most influential, iconic, infamous and forgotten games of all-time were created. From the painstaking hours at the computer developing to problems with mega publishers and with the media after release, The Minds Behind the Games gives you unparalleled access to the minds behind some of your favorite games. It will even introduce you to games that you never knew existed, but should.

Java 2 ME (Micro Edition) is the client-side Java development platform for building wireless Java-based cell phone and PDA applications. This book addresses the fun challenge of building game applications for these kinds of portable devices. Author Carol Hamer shows you how to use J2ME for developing, using the latest MIDP 2.0 specification.

If you are new to developing with J2ME, we recommend you first read Jonathan Knudsens "Wireless Java: Developing with J2ME, Second Edition." We suggest that you read this book second, then complete the "series" with David Crofts "Advanced Java Game Programming," for a comprehensive Apress experience of game developing with Java. Table of Contents Getting Started Using MIDlets Using the MIDP 2.0 Games API Using Threads and Tones Storing and Retrieving Data Communicating over a Network Securing Your Applications

The Computers and Games (CG) series began in 1998 with the objective of showcasing new developments in arti?cial intelligence (AI) research that used games as the experimental test-bed. The ?rst two CG conferences were held at Hamamatsu, Japan(1998,2000).ComputersandGames2002(CG2002)wasthe third event in this biennial series. The conference was held at the University of Alberta(Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), July25 27,2002.Theprogramconsisted of the main conference featuring refereed papers and keynote speakers, as well as several side events including the Games Informatics Workshop, the Agents in Computer Games Workshop, the Trading Agents Competition, and the North American Computer Go Championship. CG 2002 attracted 110 participants from over a dozen countries. Part of the successoftheconferencewasthatitwasco-locatedwiththeNationalConference of the American Association for Arti?cial Intelligence (AAAI), which began in Edmonton just as CG 2002 ended. The CG 2002 program had 27 refereed paper presentations. The papers ranged over a wide variety of AI-related topics including search, knowledge, learning, planning, and combinatorial game theory. Research test-beds included one-player games (blackjack, sliding-tile puzzles, Sokoban), two-player games (Amazons, awari, chess, Chinese chess, clobber, Go, Hex, Lines of Action, O- ello, shogi), multi-player games (Chinese checkers, cribbage, Diplomacy, hearts, spades), commercial games (role-playing games, real-time strategy games), and novel applications (Post s Correspondence Problem)."

Video games represent a unique blend of programming, art, music, and unbridled creativity. To the general public, they are perhaps the most exciting computer applications ever undertaken. In the field of computer science, they have been the impetus for a continuous stream of innovations designed to provide gaming enthusiasts with the most realistic and enjoyable gaming experience possible. Algorithmic and Architectural Gaming Design: Implementation and Development discusses the most recent advances in the field of video game design, with particular emphasis on practical examples of game development, including design and implementation. The target audience of this book includes educators, students, practitioners, professionals, and researchers working in the area of video game design and development. Anyone actively developing video games will benefit from the practical application of fundamental computer science concepts demonstrated in this book.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed postproceedings of the Second International Conference on Computers and Games, CG 2001, held in Hamamatsu, Japan in October 2000. The 23 revised full papers presented together with two invited contributions and five reviews were carefully refereed and selected during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The papers are organized in topical sections on search and strategies, learning and pattern acquisition, theory and complexity issues, and further experiments on game; the reviews presented are on computer language games, computer Go, intelligent agents for computer games, RoboCup, and computer Shogi.

Launched in January 2018, the Overwatch League (OWL) is the first large-scale concerted effort to build a competitive, global framework for an eSport that can rival the largest pro sports leagues. $3.5 million in prize money, a broadcasting deal with ESPN, and the purchase of OWL teams by celebrity owners including Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, and Stan Kroenke, owner of the Los Angeles Rams, set the stakes for the launch. The first season ended in a tense round of playoffs that climaxed in a suspenseful championship series in a sold-out Barclay's Center. Austin Moorhead, a gamer who found himself fascinated by the emerging world of pro players, embedded himself during OWL's debut season with multiple teams, including the London Spitfire, which would go on to become Overwatch's first world champion. In Young Guns, he takes readers behind the scenes of the wild first season of a competition that just might become as ingrained in our culture as Sunday football, revealing a high-stakes, pressure-cooker world of profane teenagers who earn six-figure salaries, TV executives and traditional sports owners struggling to understand and conquer youth culture, and a game whose innovation progresses so fast that fans watch their favourite gamers practice for hours just to keep up with it. Told with perspective on the subculture and unrivalled access into how both the OWL and the teams that compose it have built themselves to succeed, Young Guns is a fascinating look at the ascendance of competitive gaming and the future of sports.

Scholars and professionals from all over the world, across experience levels and the gender and sexuality spectrum, share experiences and analysis of romance and sexuality in video games. Whether discussing casual sex in the Star Wars universe; analyzing various Otome games; examining "the gaze" in various games; player romance behavior in games; or exploring the ethical ramifications of sexuality in virtual reality and other emerging technologies, this book discusses what players want in video game romance, and how developers can best deliver it. Key Features: Examines the past, present, and future of romance in single-player, role-playing games Discusses common presentations of romance in single-player, role-playing games- both in the category and game mechanics that drive romance Discusses research on how players define a satisfying game romance and what specific steps narrative designers can take to design satisfying games Explains the notion of the empathic game and explores its importance in relation to romance in game design

Steve Rabin's Game AI Pro 360: Guide to Architecture gathers all the cutting-edge information from his previous three Game AI Pro volumes into a convenient single source anthology covering game AI architecture. This volume is complete with articles by leading game AI programmers that further explore modern architecture such as behavior trees and share architectures used in top games such as Final Fantasy XV, the Call of Duty series and the Guild War series. Key Features Provides real-life case studies of game AI in published commercial games Material by top developers and researchers in Game AI Downloadable demos and/or source code available online

The success of Angry Birds, Peggle, and Fruit Ninja has proven that fun and immersive game experiences can be created in two dimensions. Furthermore, 2D graphics enable developers to quickly prototype ideas and mechanics using fewer resources than 3D. 2D Graphics Programming for Games provides an in-depth single source on creating 2D graphics that can be easily applied to many game platforms, including iOS, Android, Xbox 360, and the PlayStation Suite. The author presents examples not only from video games but also from art and animated film. The book helps new programmers learn the concepts and techniques used to produce appealing 2D graphics. It starts with the basics and then covers topics pertaining to motion and depth, such as cel animation, tiling, and layering. The text also describes advanced graphics, including the use of particle systems, shaders, and splines. Code samples in the text and online allow readers to see a particular line of code in action or as it relates to the code around it. In addition, challenges and suggested projects encourage readers to work through problems, experiment with solutions, and tinker with code. Full of practical tools and tricks, this color book gives novices in-depth guidance on making professional, high-quality graphics for games. It also improves the relationship between programmers and artists by explaining how certain art and design challenges can be solved with a programmatic solution.

This book is the fourth offical archival publication devoted to RoboCup and documents the achievements presented at the Fourth Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences, RoboCup 2000, held in Melbourne, Australia, in August/September 2000. The book presents the following parts: introductory overview and survey, championship papers by the winners of the competitions, finalist papers for the RoboCup challenge awards, papers and posters presented at the workshop, team description of a large number of participating teams. This book is mandatory reading for the rapidly growing RoboCup community as well as a valuable source of reference and inspiration for R & D professionals interested in multi-agent systems, distributed artificial intelligence, and intelligent robotics.

ThisbookcontainsthepaperspresentedattheFirstInternationalConferenceon Computers and Games (CG'98) held at the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL), in Tsukuba, Japan, on November 11-12, 1998. TheCG'98focusesonallaspectsofresearchrelatedtocomputersandgames. Relevanttopics include, but arenotlimited to,the currentstate ofgame-playing programs. The book contains new theoretical developments in game-related - search, general scienti c contributions produced by the study of games, social aspects of computer games, mathematical games, cognitive research of how - mans play games, and so on. As this volume shows, CG'98 is an international conference, with participants from many di erent countries who have di erent backgrounds and hence exhibit di erent views on computers and games. The Conference was the rst one in a series of conferences on this topic. It was a direct follow-up of many successful computer-games-relatedevents held in Japan, such as the series of four Game Programming Workshops (GPW'94 to GPW'97) and the IJCAI-97 Workshop on Computer Games. The technical program consisted of a keynote lecture, titled: Predictions (by H.J. van den Herik), and 21 presentations of accepted papers. The conference was preceded by an informal Workshop on November 10, 1998. The Program Committee (PC) received 35 submissions. Eachpaper was sent to three referees, who were selected on the basis of their expert knowledge. Twelve papers were acceptedimmediately,12paperswerenotaccepted,and11paperswerereturned to the authors with the request to improve them, and with the statement that they would be refereed again. Finally, with the help of many referees (see the endofthis preface),the PCaccepted21papers forpresentationandpublication.

The behind-the-scenes story of the world's most notorious and controversial video games company - Rockstar Games. Jacked is the incredible story behind the phenomenon that changed video games for ever - Grand Theft Auto. Powerful politicians tried to stop it, parents and activists vigorously campaigned against it, but they couldn't stop GTA breaking records. GTA IV became the biggest entertainment product launch of all time, eclipsing all other books, films and music, and went on to become the most controversial video game in history. Now, after 10 years of research, David Kushner reveals how Sam Houser's company, Rockstar Games, made it all possible. He lifts the veil of secrecy around the team to show how a blend of creative genius, daring PR campaigns, big egos and an obsessive work ethic all came together to create a monster with a tendency to spiral out of control. Including the full story behind 'Hot Coffee' - the hidden sex minigame that nearly killed the game and the company - Jacked gets right to the heart of what it takes to make a classic computer game...

This book is a way of sharing insights empirically gathered, over decades of interactive media development, by the author and other children's designers. Included is as much emerging theory as possible in order to provide background for practical and technical aspects of design while still keeping the information accessible. The author's intent for this book is not to create an academic treatise but to furnish an insightful and practical manual for the next generation of children's interactive media and game designers. Key Features Provides practical detailing of how children's developmental needs and capabilities translate to specific design elements of a piece of media Serves as an invaluable reference for anyone who is designing interactive games for children (or adults) Detailed discussions of how children learn and how they play Provides lots of examples and design tips on how to design content that will be appealing and effective for various age ranges Accessible approach, based on years of successful creative business experience, covers basics across the gamut from developmental needs and learning theories to formats, colors, and sounds

Create your first 2D, 3D, and AR/VR games with the awesome Unity game platform. With this hands-on beginner's guide, you'll start building games fast! In Unity in Action, Third Edition, you will learn how to: Create characters that run, jump, and bump into things Build 3D first-person shooters and third-person action games Construct 2D card games and side-scrolling platformers Script enemies with AI Improve game graphics by importing models and images Design an intuitive user interface for your games Play music and spatially-aware sound effects Connect your games to the internet for online play Deploy your games to desktop, mobile, and the web Thousands of new game developers have chosen Joe Hocking's Unity in Action as their first step toward Unity mastery. This fully updated third edition comes packed with fully refreshed graphics, Unity's latest features, and coverage of the augmented and virtual reality toolkits. Using your existing coding skills, you'll write custom code instead of just clicking together premade scripts. You'll master the Unity toolset from the ground up, adding the skills you need to go from application coder to game developer. Build your next game without sweating the low-level details. The Unity game engine handles the heavy lifting, so you can focus on game play, graphics, and user experience. With support for C#, a huge ecosystem of production-quality prebuilt assets, and a strong dev community, Unity will get your game idea off the drawing board and onto the screen! You can even use Unity for more than game development, with new tools for VR and augmented reality that are perfect for developing useful apps.

This information-packed strategy guide is a must-have for any Apex Legends player. With handy hints and tips to get you started, this guide will help you to quickly master the basics of the game, including the best weapons, playing as a team and all map locations. As each game is completely different, this guide will help even advanced players hone their technique, find the best loot and choose their weapons wisely. You will also learn about the characters, reviving team members and secrets of the map!

Everyone should learn to code. Much like drawing and sketching, playing an instrument, cooking, or taking pictures and shooting videos, coding is a creative endeavor, which means it's a way to actually create stuff, and creating stuff is incredibly rewarding and satisfying. Sure, it's fun to spend hours on your phone looking at what other people have created; but that's nothing compared to the joy and satisfaction of creating things that other people consume and use. Yep, coding is fun!

And if that weren't enough, when you learn to code you develop all sorts of invaluable skills and traits beyond just coding. These include planning, problem solving, communication, logic, empathy, attention to detail, patience, resilience, persistence, and creativity. And it turns out that these skills (especially creativity and creative problem solving) are some of the most in-demand out there. So, coding will help your future career, too, regardless of what that career may be. But, where to start?

Captain Code is a welcoming, engaging, and fun introduction to becoming a coder, designed for the young (ages 10-17) and young-at-heart. Experienced educators and coders Ben & Shmuel Forta will guide you using Python, one of the most popular programming languages in the world. You'll learn by creating games, yes, games, from simple projects to retro text-based adventures to complete graphical arcade style games.

Transnational Play approaches gameplay as a set of practices and a global industry that includes diverse participation from players and developers located within the global South, in nations outside of the First World. Players experience play in game cafes, through casual games for regional and global causes like environmentalism, through piracy and cheats, via cultural localization, on their mobile phones, and through urban playful art in Latin America. This book offers a reorientation of perspective on the global developers who make games, as well as the players who consume games, while still acknowledging geographically distributed socioeconomic, racial, gender, and other inequities. Over the course of the inquiry, which includes a chapter dedicated to the cartography of the mobile augmented reality game Pokemon Go, the author develops a theoretical line of argument critically informed by gender studies and intersectionality, postcolonialism, geopolitics, and game studies, problematizing play as a diverse and contested transnational domain.

This comprehensive resource examines the rapidly-growing esports phenomenon in higher education, bringing the perspectives of players, administrators, and scholars together in one volume to discuss the basics of esports, how to start and maintain successful esports programs, and issues and trends in the field. Esports are a global phenomenon with an estimated audience of 400 million people in 2018. Given their already strong base and rising popularity on college campuses, esports have been referred to as the new college football. This book offers practical insights into how to develop and maintain an esports program that is consistent with institutional purposes and values. The book is helpful to all types of institutions (small to large, public and private, 2-year or 4-year). It draws on current scholarship and the professional experience of the authors, focused heavily on practical advice for higher education professionals. Among the challenges of esports in higher education the book addresses are competition structure, competition climate, child protection, cheating, gambling, lack of reliable relevant data to inform decisions, and the advent of an esports arms race. Some of the opportunities described in the book include student recruitment and success networks with high schools, and partnerships with the esports industry. Done correctly, esports can provide a structured way for all students (on campus, off campus, and online) to engage in both curricular and cocurricular programming that can provide measurable learning outcomes and have a positive impact on retention rates.

Games are poised for a major evolution, driven by growth in technical sophistication and audience reach. Characters that create powerful social and emotional connections with players throughout the game-play itself (not just in cut scenes) will be essential to next-generation games. However, the principles of sophisticated character design and interaction are not widely understood within the game development community. Further complicating the situation are powerful gender and cultural issues that can influence perception of characters. Katherine Isbister has spent the last 10 years examining what makes interactions with computer characters useful and engaging to different audiences. This work has revealed that the key to good design is leveraging player psychology: understanding what's memorable, exciting, and useful to a person about real-life social interactions, and applying those insights to character design. Game designers who create great characters often make use of these psychological principles without realizing it. Better Game Characters by Design gives game design professionals and other interactive media designers a framework for understanding how social roles and perceptions affect players' reactions to characters, helping produce stronger designs and better results.

Your essential guide to Fortnite, the biggest game of the year, combining info on Battle Royale and Save the World modes into the ultimate one-stop winner's manual. Inside, there are crucial combat tips, Save the World survival advice, building instructions and tons of Battle Royale secrets, plus loads of stunning screenshots. It's everything you need to be the last one standing! * Combat essentials section, all about weapons, tactics and sneaky tricks. * Dedicated sections on how to create the deadliest traps andstructures. * Profiles of the best tools and weapons, and where to find them. * Suitable for complete beginners, but full of advanced info, too. * Special tips encourage co-operative play with info on communication.

Discover the path to the big leagues It's time to prove all those people who said "video games are a waste of time" wrong. Esports has rewarded top gamers with prize money, glory, and even college scholarships. Want to get in on the action? This book puts you on the path to get your share of the growing world of esports. It helps you figure out the gear you need to be competitive, the games that drive esports, how to break into competitive play, and how to use online platforms to get attention. Written by the esports program director at the first Division I university to field an esports team, this book defines and demystifies the complex world of competitive video gaming. Get the gear for your first esports battles Gain recognition for your skills online or in tournaments Discover the path to earning scholarships in esports Build your online identity Get the insider tips you need to make your name in the esports universe.

This book is a collection of research articles that deal with three aspects of simulation and gaming for social design: (1) Theory and methodology, including game system theory and agent-based modeling; (2) Sustainability, including global warming and the energy-food nexus);; and (3) Social entrepreneurship, including business, ethnic, and ethical understanding. The latter two especially form two major areas of clinical knowledge in contemporary life. Simulation and gaming, with its participatory approach, provides participants with a seamless integration of problem solving and education. It has been known as a tool for interdisciplinary communication since the 1960s, and now it is being developed to contribute to global society in the twenty-first century. This is the first book on simulation and gaming for social design that covers all aspects from the methodological foundations to practical examples in the fields of sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Regardless of the size of the problematics, societal system design involves (1) The visioning and conception aspects due to the long-term, overall nature of the goal; (2) Interdisciplinary thinking and communication for the exploration of new states of accommodation with technological systems; and (3) The "human dimension" aspect including education that must be dealt with, thus academic developments of simulation and gaming for social design as system thinking and practice methodologies are anticipated. Simulation and gaming has great potential for development as a tool to facilitate the transfer between theoretical and clinical knowledge.

This book brings the insights of game professionals, DCC creators, hardware vendors, and current researchers together into a collection that focuses on the most underrepresented and critical part of game production: tools development. The first gems-type book dedicated to game tools, this volume focuses on practical, implementable tools for game development professionals. Topics range from asset tracking to improving remote version control performance to robust and efficient IO. Technical artists, as well as game play, audio, and graphics programmers will find new tools to improve work flow and help build games faster.

A wide-ranging anthology of essays exploring one of the most vital art forms on the planet today.

From the earliest computers to the smartphones in our pockets, video games have been on our screens and part of our lives for over fifty years. Critical Hits celebrates this sophisticated medium and considers its lasting impact on our culture and ourselves.

This collection of stylish, passionate, and searching essays opens with an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, who edited the anthology alongside J. Robert Lennon. In these pages, writer-gamers find solace from illness and grief, test ideas about language, bodies, power, race, and technology, and see their experiences and identities reflected in―or complicated by―the interactive virtual worlds they inhabit. Elissa Washuta immerses herself in The Last of Us during the first summer of the pandemic. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah describes his last goodbye to his father with the help of Disco Elysium. Jamil Jan Kochai remembers being an Afghan American teenager killing Afghan insurgents in Call of Duty.

Also included are a comic by MariNaomi about her time as a video game producer; a deep dive into “portal fantasy” movies about video games by Charlie Jane Anders; and new work by Alexander Chee, Hanif Abdurraqib, Larissa Pham, and many more.