James R Parker - Introduction to Game Development: Using Processing

I NTRODUCTION T O
G AME D EVELOPMENT
U SING P ROCESSING

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I NTRODUCTION T O
G AME D EVELOPMENT
U SING P ROCESSING

J AMES R. P ARKER

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James R. Parker. Introduction To Game Development Using Processing.
ISBN: 978-1-937585-40-2

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To Reni.
Thanks for everything.

CONTENTS

This book has taken longer to write than anticipated, but would have taken even longer without the help of a few key folks. Thanks go out: to Matthius Kabel for his panoramic image; to Herminio Nieves for the use of his Cycle model; to NASA for having the generosity to allow their images to be used by others; to my old friends at Radical Entertainment for g-etting me started, to Damien Di Fede for Minim ; and, of course, to the developers of Processing : Ben Fry, Casey Reas, and a host of others.

Games have been a subject of fascination for students for well over a decade. There are now thousands of people studying video game development at universities in North America alone, either as part of a formal game development degree or as a part of another program. Games can be used to teach, to convince, to sell, and simply to enjoy, and all have the same basic underlying structure as software and as media objects. Any computer game has the same essential structure: they use images and sounds, have objects that interact visually on the screen, and repeatedly update the display many times per second according to the simulated situation. There are some very advanced systems for game development available on the Internet, some being free and some for sale, but underneath they all help accomplish very similar tasks.

This book is intended to provide game development students with the insights into how games function that are an essential starting point for further study. Each of the chapters focuses on a particular aspect of game development, from graphics to audio to artificial intelligence to animation, and does so in a very hands-on way. For people with little programming background Appendix B gives a quick introduction to Processing with some basic examples. Appendix A illustrates some of the common mathematics techniques used in building games. There is a lot of code on the companion disk, including three complete games: a 2D arcade style game named Hockey Pong , a 3D submarine game named SMV Rainbow , and a puzzle game for Android. These are examples, but are fully functional and show how to deal with many of the typical problems one would normally encounter in a game development project.

The language Processing is used because it provides a visual output very easily it was designed for art students while having access to the full power of Java. Almost anyone in a development team could learn Processing and appreciate the game principles that are described using that language. Its also possible to build quite interesting games in Processing , games that can run on personal computers, on the Internet through browsers, and as Android apps.

The subject of gamification is not pursued in this book specifically, but the material here can be used in implementing gamified interfaces and systems. After all, running Processing on a Web page is spectacularly easy.

A computer game is a microcosm of the discipline of computer science. A game contains within it many of the problems one would study in a computer science degree program, and a small set of games could encompass nearly every concept a CS degree would present. Its an entertaining way to learn the subject, not just programming but artificial intelligence, interfaces, graphics, and design. So read, modify the code, add new art, and have fun if you are not having fun, youre doing it wrong.