Alejandro Rodas de Paz - Python Game Programming By Example

Alejandro Rodas de Paz is a computer engineer and game developer from Seville, Spain.

He came across Python back in 2009, while he was studying at the University of Seville. Alejandro developed several academic projects with Python, from web crawlers to artificial intelligence algorithms. In his spare time, he started building his own games in Python. He did a minor in game design at Hogeschool van Amsterdam, where he created a small 3D game engine based on the ideas he learned during this minor.

He has also developed some open source projects, such as a Python API for the Philips Hue personal lighting system. You can find these projects in his GitHub account at https://github.com/aleroddepaz.

Prior to this publication, Alejandro collaborated with Packt Publishing as a technical reviewer on the book Tkinter GUI Application Development Hotshot .

I would like to thank my parents, Feliciano and Mara Teresa, for their absolute trust and support. They have been an inspiration to me and an example of hard work.

I would also like to thank my girlfriend, Luca, for her love and for putting up with me while I worked on this book.

Joseph Howse is a writer, software developer, and business owner from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Computer games and code are imbibed in his earliest memories, as he learned to read and type by playing text adventures with his older brother, Sam, and watching him write graphics demos in BASIC.

Joseph's other books include OpenCV for Secret Agents , OpenCV Blueprints , Android Application Programming with OpenCV 3 , and Learning OpenCV 3 Computer Vision with Python . He works with his cats to make computer vision systems for humans, felines, and other users. Visit http://nummist.com to read about some of his latest projects done at Nummist Media Corporation Limited.

I dedicate my work to Sam, Jan, Bob, Bunny, and my cats, who have been my lifelong guides and companions.

I congratulate my coauthor for producing an excellent compendium of classic examples of game development. I am grateful for the opportunity to add my chapter on checkers (draughts) and computer vision.

I am also indebted to the many editors and technical reviewers who have contributed to planning, polishing, and marketing this book. I have come to expect an outstanding team when working with Packt Publishing, and once again, all of them have guided me with their experience and saved me from sundry errors and omissions. Please meet the technical reviewers by reading their biographies here.

Finally, I want to thank my readers and everybody in the open source community. We are united in our efforts to build and share all kinds of projects and knowledge, paving the way for books such as this to succeed.

Benjamin Johnson is an experienced Python programmer with a passion for game programming, software development, and web design. He is currently studying computer science at The University of Texas at Austin and plans to specialize in software engineering. His most popular Python projects include an adventure game engine and a particle simulator, both developed using Pygame. You can check out Benjamin's latest Pygame projects and articles on his website at www.learnpygame.com.

I would like to thank Packt Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read and review this excellent book!

Dennis O'Brien is the director of data science at Game Show Network Games. He studied physics at the University of Chicago as an undergraduate and completed his graduate studies in computer science from the University of Illinois, Chicago. He was the principal software engineer at Electronic Arts, a senior software engineer at Leapfrog Enterprises, and a lead game developer at Jellyvision Games.

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Preface

Welcome to Python Game Programming By Example . As hobbyist programmers or professional developers, we may build a wide variety of applications, from large enterprise systems to web applications made with state-of-the-art frameworks. However, game development has always been an appealing topic, maybe simply for creating casual games and not just for high-budget AAA titles.