Roaming Gamer

Yes, at long last, I have completed my second book, “Multiplayer Gaming and Engine Coding for the Torque Game Engine” (MGEC). On Thursday March 20th, I sent the last of my edits back to the publisher, A K Peters, Ltd.

This is the second book in a two-book series that focuses on using the Torque Game Engine for making single-player and multi-player games.

My first book, “The Game Programmer’s Guide to Torque” (GPGT) provided an introduction to the engine. It discussed many introductory topics, the built-in tools, and the TorqueScript [scripting] language.

MGEC kicks things up several notches and focuses on multiplayer game development, various advanced topics, and engine modification. That’s right, this book teaches you how to modify the engine’s C++ source code.

(For those who can’t wait to find out what is in this book, a truncated table of contents is provided at the end of this blog. However, if you can wait just a little longer, please read on.)

It is fair to say that I learned a lot while writing my first book. Additionally, I received tons of helpful feedback from my readers. So, although writing this book was several times more challenging than writing the first, I believe I have improved the quality of my writing and the end-value for you.

Some of the improvements you will see (over GPGT) are:

• Fewer Sample Code Errors – Every piece of code in the written book, in every exercise, and in every answer has been tested and re-tested, both by myself and the fabulous technical reviewers who worked with me.
• Many More Exercises – Whereas GPGT had only 21 exercises, MGEC has 62 exercises. Six of these are incorporated in the written guide while the remaining 56 [230 pp.] are included on the CD. (Please see links below for samples of exercise you will find on the CD.)
• Separate Answers – All of the exercises in the book and on the CD come with separate answers and completed source code answers as well. (You have to do the work on your own this time.)
• OS X Ready – The book and the contents of the CD are ready (and tested) for both Windows and OS X users.
• Improved Index – To make sure that the index was valuable, I used it while I wrote the exercises, while working on other Torque tasks, and whenever an interesting question struck me.
• Better Kit – Although I still made a stand-alone starter kit for this guide, you will find that it is much closer to the standard “Starter.FPS”. You can easily apply what you learn in my book to the standard Torque SDK.

Table Of Contents

I Introduction
1 Introduction

II Multiplayer Games
2 Torque Multiplayer Games Primer
3 Game Connections
4 Servers
5 Communications
6 Game Phases and Organization

III Advanced Scripting
7 Artificial Intelligence
8 Collision Detection and Response
9 Containers and Ray Casting

IV Engine Coding
10 Introduction to Engine Coding
11 Creating and Using New Game Classes

V Debugging
12 It’s Broken! Debugging Torque
13 It’s Slow! Performance Profiling
14 I’m Stuck! Getting Help

Appendices
A Glossary of Terms
B Essential References

Accompanying CD
a. Lesson Kit.
b. 56 (230 pp.) exercises.
c. C++ Templates for major game classes and GUIs.
d. Answers to all tasks in printed guide and all exercises.
e. More …

3 Sample Exercises From CD

Chapter 01 – Exercise #1 – Using The Kit
Chapter 10 – Exercise #1 – Compiling Torque In Windows
Chapter 10 – Exercise #2 – Compiling Torque In OS X

-edo