The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners

This book bears a notice, "Copyright 2006-2013," so I assume it came out in 2006, long before GameMaker:Studio's 2012 release. As such, it includes Game Maker 8 on its CD, and the text refers to that version. Which would be fine if the only differences were that GameMaker:Studio includes more features than Game Maker 8 did, but that's not the case. The "Sleep" and "Show High Score" actions no longer exist, but are used in the instructional games and text, nonetheless.Now, "sleep" functions of one kind or another have probably been used by generations of programmers who needed their continuous-action, real-time games to present a certain pace or timing to the player. Alas, a lot of those programmers were writing single-threaded, sequential-execution code (you know: FOR X=0 TO 359 STEP 5, and so on). In our current era of event-driven, multi-threaded software, "sleep" functions tend simply to muck things up. What we used to do with sleep, we now do with timers (what Game Maker calls "alarms"). That's a big step forward, but it plays havoc with the learning process when the text you are working from expects you to add a "Sleep" action in the middle of a list of actions, and you don't have that action available, nor do you know how you would get around it with Alarms (since those aren't introduced for another 80 pages and, even then, they are used to invoke the "Show High Scores" action, which, again, no longer exists).So, I hope the authors will update the book to match the current version of the product. That said, let me go on to say that I _really_ hope they will do so, as this is otherwise a very, very good book. If you already know how to program, but find the GM IDE baffling, the examples will help you calm down and get focused. If you already know how to program, but find the immense list of GM functions and the large variety of ways to do things daunting, the examples will help you calm down and feel secure. But, if you don't already know how to program, this book may frustrate you, unless you limit yourself to the GM8 product on the included CD. I wouldn't recommend doing that, however, as you will then be "learning" methods that are already obsolete and simply _will not work_ when you start using GameMaker:Studio.Ignoring the technical details, the book's methodological approach to game programming is very enlightening. I've written, oh, maybe a billion ( 8-) ) lines of code for computer graphics applications of one kind or another. Gaming is something I'm new at, however, and I've only been doing object-oriented programming for about four years now. So, when one example showed how to animate a character on the screen so it smoothly moves from one position to the next by replacing it with an instance of a different object, having that object's position remain unchanged, but animating its graphic appearance to make it look like it was moving, then replacing it with an instance of the original object but in the new location, well... that was an "aha!" moment for me.Overall, a fine book. I will definitely be buying the sequel soon. But, until it is updated to reflect the actions available in the current version of GameMaker:Studio, I have to say it should be used only by people who already know how to program basic event-driven code, and who at least know what multi-threading is.

I stepped through the first game (Chapter 2) with my 11 year old son this past weekend. He seemed to really enjoy it and it was nice to work on a project with him. I think that we'll probably dedicate a couple of hours every week to working through each chapter until we finish the book.The good.It's a good primer to get kids interested in programming. It allows them to begin understanding the concepts of objects and how the objects work together in a program in order for things to happen. The software to make the games is easy enough for children and when looking through the book it strengthens their use of a computer.The bad.In chapter 1 it's explained that the software included on the disk is basically a trial version and you cannot use code / advanced features without paying for them. I thumbed through the book and seen that the last couple of chapters actually dive into code and really that's what I was hoping for to begin with. My son is not a wiz-kid by any means but being that he's learning algebra in school now and loves video games that I could begin tying math into something fun - game programming. My background in programming is for business systems - data manipulation can be interesting for geeky types but it's not something I can share with my son. I don't know how to write games and I would have loved to have learned along side him using this book. Unfortunately this book is not what I was shooting for. As I mentioned at the beginning of the review, we'll go ahead and work our way through the book and we'll invest in another book that really gets into coding rather than using an excellent piece of software to write games for you...which is what this is...a HOW TO BOOK on HOW TO USE YOYO GAMES software to make games...3 stars. Decent introductory book. It does still allow the tweaking of variables to show the impact that it has on the objects in the game and perhaps in the further chapters it will get into that more and more.

Second book in the series. This is a very well written book.It takes you from the basics up to the intermediate level.

it install the newer version so it is hard to follow the tutorials

this book is well written and so on but its totally outdated with the current version of Game Maker that is currently out. avoid at all cost.

Awesome,Awesome,Awesome

This book is an absolute delight.There is such enthusiasm flowing from the authors you get swept along on a fantastic adventure.The step by step guide to creating games (using the included software) simply couldn't be any clearer. If you have any aptitude at all for making games you will find this book a revelation. By the end of the book (if not long before) you will not only be sparkling with ideas, but you will have the tools to bring them to life. I think this book will definitely be the starting point for many young game makers of the future.I would like to meet the authors and shake them by the hand, this really is one of the best tutorial books I have come across on any subject.If you have a kid who plays games, why not turn their enthusiasm into something more creative. Not only will they learn about making games, they will start to learn about programming computers and object oriented design - useful tools in the I.T. job market.I used to be a game designer a long time ago, and I got this book for my ten year old son. He is downstairs now making another game and calling me to see his work - so much better than simply watching the TV. We really enjoyed working through the examples together.If I had had this book when I was younger I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven. In my day I typed in buggy listings into a computer line by line and spent days trying to make it work. With game maker it is so much easier with a really friendly interface to click and drag objects around with. Plus, the games you make are really pretty good. You can even publish your games to the authors own web site (YoYo games) and get feedback from other players.