SDL Game Development:

by Shaun Mitchell

BLACK & WHITE EDITION If you're good with C++ and object oriented programming, this book utilizes your skills to create 2D games using the Simple DirectMedia Layer API. Practical tutorials include the development of two wickedly good games. Overview In Detail SDL 2.0 is the latest release of the popular Simple DirectMedia Layer API, which is designed to make life easier for C++ developers, allowing you simple low-level access to various multiplatform audio, graphics, and input devices. SDL Game Development guides you through creating your first 2D game using SDL and C++. It takes a clear and practical approach to SDL game development, ensuring that the focus remains on creating awesome games. Starting with the installation and setup of SDL, you will quickly become familiar with useful SDL features, covering sprites, state management, and OOP, leading to a reusable framework that is extendable for your own games. SDL Game Development culminates in the development of two exciting action games that utilize the created framework along with tips to improve the framework. What you will learn from this book Approach Written as a practical and engaging tutorial, SDL Game Development guides you through the development of your own framework and the creation of two exciting, fully-featured games. Who this book is written for SDL Game Development is aimed at C++ developers who want to learn the fundamentals of SDL for cross-platform game development. This isn't a beginner's guide to C++, so a good knowledge of C++ and object oriented programming is a must.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Nico · Rating 3 out of 5]

I abandoned this book, because at a certain point the code is too buggy to hold it together. As I followed through the book and typed in the example code as written, I found that I often had to make a lot of changes to get it to compile and to weed out a few really tricky runtime errors. I did enjoy the author's tone and expertise though, and I would definitely be interested if the make a 2nd edition. In the meantime, I'm going to switch to SFML until there is better SDL 2 literature available.

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book lays out the general design of a game engine that can be used to make a classic side scroller, and provides you with a sloppy implementation of said engine. It also suggests some open source tools for level design and parsing.

The code in this book is buggy, the coding style is inconsistent, and there’s nothing about logging, testing, etc., so this book will not really teach you how to properly develop software, games or otherwise.

As far as I know this is the only book that teaches you game design using SDL2. It doesn’t do a great job at either, but since it’s the only book that does both, I think it’s still worth reading. But only if you have experience with neither game design or SDL2, you like to use open source libraries, and are comfortable enough with C++ development that you can debug and polish the code yourself.

[Ahmad Muhardian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buku yang cukup menarik buat memahami cara bikin game dengan SDL from scratch. Kalau baca dari PDF-nya kurang nyaman karena, kodenya hitam putih. Tapi kalau baca versi online dari Packpub, terasa nyaman karena sudah sintax highlight.

[Franc Pouhela]

I did have the same experience as other reader this books in the first three chapter is quite insteresting. but there is too much changes going around and this simply make this inconsistent.

[Igor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this book as an introduction to the SDL library using C++, but unfortunately stopped reading it after 5th chapter — too many mistakes in the source code, and the "adding states example" introduced major issue with an incorrect destruction of the objects, which makes following the book further quite useless.