Windows Game Programming with Visual Basic and DirectX [With CDROM]

Windows Game Programming with Visual Basic and DirectX is the only game programming book on the market that pairs the ease of Visual Basic with the power and flash of DirectX applications. The book is written to teach the skills and thoughts behind game programming, with hands-on examples and a simulation game project that results in a complete application at the end of the book. Topics such as artificial intelligence, animation, sound effects, background music, and multiplayer setups will be covered in detail and put to work in the hands-on game project.

Wayne S. Freeze started working with computers in 1975 and he hasn't stopped yet. Along the way, he's held nearly every computer-related job available in a large computer organization. Before he started writing full-time, he was the technical support manager at the University of Maryland at College Park, where he was responsible for a large IBM mainframe and a diverse collection of smaller computers.

This is his tenth computer book and his first for Que. Until now, he's spent most of his time writing about Visual Basic, databases, or some combination thereof. He also writes magazine articles for several different magazines on topics ranging from how to create Office macros to digging into the guts of the Common Runtime Library in Microsoft's new .NET framework.

Now, Wayne works out of his house in rural South Dakota with his lovely wife Jill (who also writes computer books) and his two children, Christopher (age 8) and Samantha (age 6). Jill, whom Microsoft crowned an "Internet zealot," is a prize-winning beta tester and has worked extensively with products like Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. Her books are aimed at consumers and her Sams Teach Yourself Computer Basics in 24 Hours, Third Edition (Sams, 2001, ISBN: 0-672-32301-X) has received rave reviews from her readers. Chris is only eight years old, but is one of the sharpest game players Wayne knows. He can easily beat kids twice his age with most computer games. Wayne rarely plays multiplayer computer action games with Chris anymore, simply because he consistently beats him! Chris was the only person in the state of South Dakota to win a prize in Gateway and Microsoft's nationwide computer game contest, and he ranked in the top 200 players in his age range in the country! When Wayne was looking for a beta tester for Swim Mall, Chris was a natural choice, and made countless valuable suggestions for the game's improvement.

Like Chris, Wayne's daughter Sammy is also a whiz with computers, though given a choice between playing with her computer and dancing, she'll pick dancing every time.