NEW HARDCOVER EDITION! Darkstalkers, Capcom's horror/anime fight-fest video game property, is a fan-favorite among gamers worldwide. Now illustrators, animators, comic artists, manga creators, pros and fans alike have come together to produce nearly 300 pages of all-new artwork celebrating the Darkstalkers franchise. This video game art gallery is packed with beastly creatures, sexy temptresses, and a hefty helping of inspiration, energy, and excitement!

Minecraft Master Builder: Monsters is a step-by-step player's guide to building griffins, yetis, minotaurs and many more monsters in Minecraft. Featuring everything from heraldic beasts to Norse and Greek mythical monsters, this fun and interactive guide will inspire readers to build amazing monstrous Minecraft models. Each build is rated a Quick, Intermediate, Master or Supreme Master Build, and a list of materials is provided for each project, plus guidance on how long each build will take. There's even information on all kinds of beasts from legend and folklore, including pictures, facts and mythology.

How game designers can use the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion to shape player experience. Getting something makes you feel good, and losing something makes you feel bad. But losing something makes you feel worse than getting the same thing makes you feel good. So finding $10 is a thrill; losing $10 is a tragedy. On an "intensity of feeling" scale, loss is more intense than gain. This is the core psychological concept of loss aversion, and in this book game creator Geoffrey Engelstein explains, with examples from both tabletop and video games, how it can be a tool in game design. Loss aversion is a profound aspect of human psychology, and directly relevant to game design; it is a tool the game designer can use to elicit particular emotions in players. Engelstein connects the psychology of loss aversion to a range of phenomena related to games, exploring, for example, the endowment effect-why, when an object is ours, it gains value over an equivalent object that is not ours-as seen in the Weighted Companion Cube in the game Portal; the framing of gains and losses to manipulate player emotions; Deal or No Deal's use of the utility theory; and regret and competence as motivations, seen in the context of legacy games. Finally, Engelstein examines the approach to Loss Aversion in three games by Uwe Rosenberg, charting the designer's increasing mastery.

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!

If you're new to C++ but understand some basic programming, then Learn C++ for Game Development lays the foundation for the C++ language and API that you'll need to build game apps and applications. Learn C++ for Game Development will show you how to: Master C++ features such as variables, pointers, flow controls, functions, I/O, classes, exceptions, templates, and the Standard Template Library (STL) Use design patterns to simplify your coding and make more powerful games Manage memory efficiently to get the most out of your creativity Load and save games using file I/O, so that your users are never disappointed Most of today's popular console and PC game platforms use C++ in their SDKs. Even the Android NDK and now the iOS SDK allow for C++; so C++ is growing in use for today's mobile game apps. Game apps using C++ become much more robust, better looking, more dynamic, and better performing. After reading this book, you'll have the skills to become a successful and profitable game app or applications developer in today's increasingly competitive indie game marketplace. The next stage is to take the foundation from this book and explore SDKs such as Android/Ouya, PlayStation, Wii, Nintendo DS, DirectX, Unity3D, and GameMaker Studio to make your career really take off.

Learn the fundamentals of networking with Unity and C#. This book covers a variety of topics, including accessing data using RESTful APIs, local networked games, and creating multiplayer online games using client-server architecture. The book provides the basics of networking, sockets, TCP vs. UDP, client-server architecture, serialization, RESTful APIs, network latency, and client-side prediction. Projects are presented to illustrate the concepts, including a chat client/server overlay for your game, and a 3D maze game that allows up to four players to connect over the network. By the end of the book, you will be familiar with low-level networking concepts such as protocols and architecture as well as high-level knowledge on how to create applications that use a client/server architecture for multiplayer games. What You Will Learn Know the difference between TCP and UDP, and the pros and cons of these protocols Create client-server multiplayer games in Unity using C# Receive and process data from a remote server using RESTful APIs Understand latency and how to mitigate its impact Who This Book Is For Readers familiar with Unity and C# development who want to create multiplayer games

Unlock the secrets to creating random mazes! Whether you're a game developer, an algorithm connoisseur, or simply in search of a new puzzle, you're about to level up. Learn algorithms to randomly generate mazes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and dimensions. Bend them into Moebius strips, fold them into cubes, and wrap them around spheres. Stretch them into other dimensions, squeeze them into arbitrary outlines, and tile them in a dizzying variety of ways. From twelve little algorithms, you'll discover a vast reservoir of ideas and inspiration. From video games to movies, mazes are ubiquitous. Explore a dozen algorithms for generating these puzzles randomly, from Binary Tree to Eller's, each copiously illustrated and accompanied by working implementations in Ruby. You'll learn their pros and cons, and how to choose the right one for the job. You'll start by learning six maze algorithms and transition from making mazes on paper to writing programs that generate and draw them. You'll be introduced to Dijkstra's algorithm and see how it can help solve, analyze, and visualize mazes. Part 2 shows you how to constrain your mazes to different shapes and outlines, such as text, circles, hex and triangle grids, and more. You'll learn techniques for culling dead-ends, and for making your passages weave over and under each other. Part 3 looks at six more algorithms, taking it all to the next level. You'll learn how to build your mazes in multiple dimensions, and even on curved surfaces. Through it all, you'll discover yourself brimming with ideas, the best medicine for programmer's block, burn-out, and the grayest of days. By the time you're done, you'll be energized and full of maze-related possibilities! What You Need: The example code requires version 2 of the Ruby programming language. Some examples depend on the ChunkyPNG library to generate PNG images, and one chapter uses POV-Ray version 3.7 to render 3D graphics

Naughty Dog Studios and Dark Horse proudly present the essential companion to "The Last of Us," a richly detailed and compelling game set in a postpandemic world where humans have become an endangered species. Featuring concept art, character designs, and astonishing settings and landscapes, "The Art of" The Last of Us provides a unique look at one of the gaming world's most eagerly anticipated titles.
* A must-have companion to the game.
* Incredible full-color artwork
* The latest project from Naughty Dog Studios.
* "The Last of Us" swept the top Game Critics awards at 2012's E3 conference.

He is the most dominant fighting game champion in the world. But before he was Japan's first pro gamer, Daigo was one of many players battling their way through Japanese arcades during the golden age of fighting games. Find out how the player became the legend in DAIGO THE BEAST: UMEHARA FIGHTING GAMERS! In Volume 2: In the 1990s, the young Daigo is rising above the fray on the challenging Akihabra arcade beat. But when his singular dedication to gaming faces the resistance of an unforgiving society, conflict begins to brew.

Inside the Games You Grew Up with but Never Forgot
With all the whiz, bang, pop, and shimmer of a glowing arcade. The Ultimate History of Video Games reveals everything you ever wanted to know and more about the unforgettable games that changed the world, the visionaries who made them, and the fanatics who played them. From the arcade to television and from the PC to the handheld device, video games have entraced kids at heart for nearly 30 years. And author and gaming historian Steven L. Kent has been there to record the craze from the very beginning.
This engrossing book tells the incredible tale of how this backroom novelty transformed into a cultural phenomenon. Through meticulous research and personal interviews with hundreds of industry luminaries, you'll read firsthand accounts of how yesterday's games like Space Invaders, Centipede, and Pac-Man helped create an arcade culture that defined a generation, and how today's empires like Sony, Nintendo, and Electronic Arts have galvanized a multibillion-dollar industry and a new generation of games. Inside, you'll discover:
·The video game that saved Nintendo from bankruptcy
·The serendipitous story of Pac-Man's design
·The misstep that helped topple Atari's $2 billion-a-year empire
·The coin shortage caused by Space Invaders
·The fascinating reasons behind the rise, fall, and rebirth of Sega
·And much more!
Entertaining, addictive, and as mesmerizing as the games it chronicles, this book is a must-have for anyone who's ever touched a joystick.

Welcome to the exciting world of game programming! If you're already familiar with the C++ programming language and want to learn how to program games, this book is for you. Game Programming in C++: Start to Finish will help you learn how to turn your own game fantasies into playable realities! Over the course of the book, you'll learn the popular techniques and practices behind today's games. Not only will you add a lot of theory to your game programming toolkit, but you'll also create a small basic game from scratch - SuperAsteriodArena. While you'll focus on using the SDL and the OpenGL libraries to learn game programming, you'll also learn the essential Windows principles that you'll need to create just about any kind of game with any other API such as DirectX. This easy-to-follow book takes current game programming information and filters it down to a practical level. Each chapter and subsection builds upon previous chapters and topics in a tutorial format, allowing you to progress at your own pace. As you work through the book, you'll build the SuperAsteriodArena game, beginning with engine creation and 3D programming with SDL and OpenGL. From there you'll move on to animation effects, audio, collision detection, networking, and finalizing the game. A variety of tools are used throughout, including Visual Studio and OpenGL, SDL, Autodesk 3ds Max, and the Audacity sound tool.

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.

In the past forty years we have seen huge technological leaps: computers, the Internet, and mobile phones, among many other fantastic things. The human nature to play and the need to be challenged mingled with these technologies, and videogames were the result. A whole generation has grown up with videogames; to them, holding a joystick is as natural as holding as pencil. Videogames have survived economic setbacks, refusing to be destroyed by a fickle market, always managing to evolve into something new to capture the imagination and find some way to take over lives and homes. Sonic, Mario, PlayStationa these terms are now part of the cultural lexicon. It isn't uncommon to find a console lurking under televisions but at the same time, this newly emerged media has come under attack by those looking to find a cause for society's ills. Part rock 'n' roll, part multibillion dollar industry, videogaming is the fastest growing media in modern culture. Clearly, it is here to stay. The Pocket Essential Videogaming contains: a complete history of videogames; cultural essays on branding, popular culture, violence and female gamers; and reviews of over 120 of the most important videogames of the past thirty years.

Although the number of commercial Java games is still small compared to those written in C or C++, the market is expanding rapidly. Recent updates to Java make it faster and easier to create powerful gaming applications-particularly Java 3D-is fueling an explosive growth in Java games. Java games like Puzzle Pirates, Chrome, Star Wars Galaxies, Runescape, Alien Flux, Kingdom of Wars, Law and Order II, Roboforge, Tom Clancy's Politika, and scores of others have earned awards and become bestsellers.

Java developers new to graphics and game programming, as well as game developers new to Java 3D, will find "Killer Game Programming in Java" invaluable. This new book is a practical introduction to the latest Java graphics and game programming technologies and techniques. It is the first book to thoroughly cover Java's 3D capabilities for all types of graphics and game development projects.

"Killer Game Programming in Java" is a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know to program cool, testosterone-drenched Java games. It will give you reusable techniques to create everything from fast, full-screen action games to multiplayer 3D games. In addition to the most thorough coverage of Java 3D available, "Killer Game Programming in Java" also clearly details the older, better-known 2D APIs, 3D sprites, animated 3D sprites, first-person shooter programming, sound, fractals, and networked games. "Killer Game Programming in Java" is a must-have for anyone who wants to create adrenaline-fueled games in Java.

From the one-bit beeps of Pong to the 3D audio of PlayStation 5, this book examines historical trends in video game sound and music. A range of game systems sold in North America, Europe and Japan are evaluated by their audio capabilities and industry competition. Technical fine points are explored, including synthesized v. sampled sound, pre-recorded v. dynamic audio, backward compatibility, discrete and multifunctional soundchips, storage media, audio programming documentation, and analog v. digital outputs. A timeline chronicles significant developments in video game sound for PC, NES, Dreamcast, Xbox, Wii, Game Boy, PSP, iOS and Android devices and many others.

At the edge of one of America's most defining eras in its history, salvation comes from the most unlikely source: video games. Playin' To Win: A Surgeon, Scientist and Parent Examines the Upside of Video Games, is inspired, in part, by many edgy titles that have previously probed the expanse of what could be. It is a Freakanomics with a more grassroots subject matter that elicits an instantaneous visceral response from citizens of every walk of life. It is an Everything Bad Is Good For You with grittier details on how the unexpected can be incorporated into raising our society to the next level. Ultimately, it makes a case that video games can promote a Tipping Point with a focus on contributing to real world solutions. It is direct, thought-provoking and consistently challenges perceptions of the boundaries of reality. It has to be! Because the readers will be the first to bear witness: this is a call for the start of a second American Revolution!

In this book, XNA expert Reimer Grootjans brings together a selection of the hottest quick-start recipes in XNA programming for the Xbox and Windows PC. Advanced XNA programmers, experienced coders new to games development, and even complete beginners will find XNA Game Programming Recipes an invaluable companion when building games for fun or as commercial products. Numerous problem-solving recipes cover topics from cameras and angles, to textures, models, and lighting and shadowing, and will get you over the common hurdles encountered in both 2D and 3D XNA application design.

Learn iPhone and iPad cocos2D Game Development provides a rock-solid introduction to the cocos2d iPhone game engine and related tools. It focuses on the process of creating several games made entirely with cocos2d and little-to-no iPhone SDK and OpenGL code. By creating 2-3 sample games over the course of the book, you'lllearn key concepts of the cocos2d game engine and relevant tools like Zwoptex (TextureAtlas), ParticleDesigner (Particle Effects), and others. The example games are modeled after popular App Store games so that they are relevant, recognizable, and immediately fun and inspiring. The games increase in complexity andhighlight common recurring cocos2d beginner questions.As you move along, you'll learnabout possible stumbling blocks and how to navigate them successfully.As you move frombeginning to advanced, you'llencountergeneral game programming wisdom, tips for performance improvement, as well as pointers to alternative implementations and further reading. What you'll learn Familiarity with the core cocos2d game engine API and the Box2d physics engine Understanding of the process and best practices of game development, in the context of cocos2d and its related tools Enthusiasm and excitement to createyour own games paired with a realization thatyou areable to create games which can compete on the App Store Where to go from here: further information and alternative implementations Who this book is for

The book is aimed at beginning game developers looking for an easier and even more powerful way to create compelling 2D graphics using OpenGL and Objective-C. It is assumed that the reader will have some knowledge of object-oriented programming and the Apple and iPhone/iPad developer environment. Check out the forum for Learn iPhone and iPad cocos2D Game Development: http: //cocos2d-central.com Table of Contents Introduction Getting Started Essentials Your First Game Game Building Blocks Sprites In-Depth Scrolling with Joy Shoot 'em Up Particle Effects Working with Tilemaps Isometric Tilemaps Physics Engines Pinball Game Game Center Out of the Ordinary

A comprehensive introduction to the latest research and theory on learning and instruction with computer games. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the latest research on learning and instruction with computer games. Unlike other books on the topic, which emphasize game development or best practices, Handbook of Game-Based Learning is based on empirical findings and grounded in psychological and learning sciences theory. The contributors, all leading researchers in the field, offer a range of perspectives, including cognitive, motivational, affective, and sociocultural. They explore research on whether (and how) computer games can help students learn educational content and academic skills; which game features (including feedback, incentives, adaptivity, narrative theme, and game mechanics) can improve the instructional effectiveness of these games; and applications, including games for learning in STEM disciplines, for training cognitive skills, for workforce learning, and for assessment. The Handbook offers an indispensable reference both for readers with practical interests in designing or selecting effective game-based learning environments and for scholars who conduct or evaluate research in the field. It can also be used in courses related to play, cognition, motivation, affect, instruction, and technology. Contributors Roger Azevedo, Ryan S. Baker, Daphne Bavelier, Amanda E. Bradbury, Ruth C. Clark, Michele D. Dickey, Hamadi Henderson, Bruce D. Homer, Fengfeng Ke, Younsu Kim, Charles E. Kinzer, Eric Klopfer, James C. Lester, Kristina Loderer, Richard E. Mayer, Bradford W. Mott, Nicholas V. Mudrick, Brian Nelson, Frank Nguyen, V. Elizabeth Owen, Shashank Pawar, Reinhard Pekrun, Jan L. Plass, Charles Raffale, Jonathon Reinhardt, C. Scott Rigby, Jonathan P. Rowe, Richard M. Ryan, Ruth N. Schwartz, Quinnipiac Valerie J. Shute, Randall D. Spain, Constance Steinkuehler, Frankie Tam, Michelle Taub, Meredith Thompson, Steven L. Thorne, A. M. Tsaasan