The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners

by Jacob Habgood

The Game Maker's Apprentice shows you how to create nine exciting games using the wildly popular Game Maker game creation tool. This book covers a range of genres, including action, adventure, and puzzle games--complete with professional quality sound effects and visuals. It discusses game design theory and features practical examples of how this can be applied to making games that are more fun to play. Game Maker allows games to be created using a simple drag-and-drop interface, so you don't need to have any prior coding experience. It includes an optional programming language for adding advanced features to your games, when you feel ready to do so. You can obtain more information by visiting book.gamemaker.nl. The authors include the creator of the Game Maker tool and a former professional game programmer, so you'll glean understanding from their expertise.

313 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2008

About the author

Dr Jacob Habgood is Director of Education Partnerships for the Sumo Digital Group and Education Advisor to The Independent Game Developer’s Association. Jake joined Sheffield-based game developer, Gremlin Graphics in the 90’s as a Computer Science graduate and stayed with them until their closure in 2003. He went on to take up a PhD scholarship in Learning Sciences at The University of Nottingham and became a Lecturer and then Reader at Sheffield Hallam University. Jake’s research interests are in game-based learning and novice programming environments. He was Principal Investigator on the H2020 REVEAL project which was shortlisted for a Times Higher Education awards for its collaboration with Sony Computer Entertainment.
Jacob is funded by a three year grant from the Royal Academy of Engineering as a “Visiting Professor of Games Software Engineering” within the department. He will work with Steve Maddock to develop resources which help undergraduates to develop applied programming skills and portfolio work for targeting employment in the creative industries. Steve himself was funded by the Royal Academy Engineering to spend six months on secondment at Gremlin Graphics in the 90’s helping to fuel some of his own research interests and industry links over subsequent years.