3D Game Programming for Kids: Create Interactive Worlds with JavaScript (Pragmatic Programmers)

Printed in full color.

You know what's even better than playing games? Creating your own. Even if you're an absolute beginner, this book will teach you how to make your own online games with interactive examples. You'll learn programming using nothing more than a browser, and see cool, 3D results as you type. You'll learn real-world programming skills in a real programming language: JavaScript, the language of the web. You'll be amazed at what you can do as you build interactive worlds and fun games.

You'll jump right in and write games and simulations while learning programming fundamentals. You'll use the ICE Code Editor, which was created especially for this book to make it easy for you to get started with JavaScript programming. With the ICE Editor, you'll see the results of your work right away. Want a red donut? You can make hundreds of them, spinning around like crazy right next to the code you just typed.

You'll do hands-on coding in every chapter. You'll start by building simple animated shapes, then make your own player--who can do cartwheels! You'll learn how to build your own games from start to finish, including a monster eating fruit, a cave puzzle, and rafting on a river. You'll animate simple shapes to create a model of the solar system, and make your own website so that you can show off your games with your friends. If you just want to make games, jump to the lessons focusing on projects. To understand some of the theory better or if you need some help with functions, turn to the chapters that explain the programming concepts. We'll walk you carefully through all the math needed to bring games to life.

Best of all, you get to create awesome games and say, "I made this!"

Chris Strom is a relentless public learner, with more than 1,000 blog posts serving as research notes for his writing. His books include Dart for Hipsters, The SPDY Book, and Recipes with Backbone. He has more than ten years of experience programming in Perl, Ruby, JavaScript, and whatever his current obsession happens to be. Chris lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, three children, and a goldfish named Martin Tanner.