Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB .NET

Sometime around 1974, David Weller discovered a coin-operated Pong game in a pizza parlor in Sacramento, California, and was instantly hooked on computer games. A few years later, he was introduced to the world of programming by his godfather, who let him use his Radio Shack TRS-80 computer to learn about programming in BASIC. David's first program was a simple dice game that graphically displayed the die face (he still has the first version he originally wrote on paper). He quickly outgrew BASIC, though, and soon discovered the amazing speed you could get by writing video games in assembly language. He spent the remainder of his high school years getting bad grades, but writing cool software, none of which made him any money. He spent the next 10 years in the military, learning details about computer systems and software development. Shortly after he left the military, David was offered a job to help build the Space Station Training Facility for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). From that point on, he merrily spent time working on visual simulation and virtual reality applications. He made the odd shift into multitier IT application development during the Internet boom, ultimately landing inside of Microsoft as a technical evangelist, where he spends time playing with all sorts of new technology and merrily saying under his breath, "I can't believe people pay me to have this much fun!"

• 1 .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection.- 2 .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites.- 3 Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+.- 4 Space Donuts: Sprites Revisited.- 5 Spacewar!.- 6 Spacewar3D: Meshes and Buffers and Textures, Oh My!.- 7 Adding Visual Effects to Spacewar3D.- Epilogue Taking Your Next Steps.- Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC.- Appendix A Suggested Reading.- Appendix B Motivations in Games.- Appendix C How Do I Make Games?.- Appendix D Guidelines for Developing Successful Games.