Original Post
Hey guys,
So my plan is to learn the inner workings of game engines, not through making one, but through building multiple games without one and slowly building common functionality of an engine. My true goal is to make games, not engines, but I really want to learn how they work, so I am making my games using basic middleware and not full blown engines/authoring tools. I know the process will be slow, but for me the value is in the learning... Ill leave the super polished 3d games for the big companies . I am using java/slick2d and I might want to learn libgdx eventually to try out Android. Anyways that is not the topic of this thread, I already discussed that on here.
I want to pick up a book or two about specific game fields such as physics, AI, etc. Since I want to take this one subject at a time, what would you say are the topics I should explore first, before some of the others? My general idea is to develop my games in my own way, and then use specific books to gain knowledge of how to better implement parts of my games. I feel like this will really help me to learn. So for example if I made a SHMUP with very slow brute force collisions because thats all I could figure out, I would read up on physics and realize how I could do it better, you get the idea. So what are the "must know" areas that I should learn in more detail if I want to really be a better game programmer?And is there a particular order that you would recommend I read in? Realistically I cant do it all at once, Im thinking of getting one book at a time on one topic and truly understanding it/learning to implement it.
So my plan is to learn the inner workings of game engines, not through making one, but through building multiple games without one and slowly building common functionality of an engine. My true goal is to make games, not engines, but I really want to learn how they work, so I am making my games using basic middleware and not full blown engines/authoring tools. I know the process will be slow, but for me the value is in the learning... Ill leave the super polished 3d games for the big companies . I am using java/slick2d and I might want to learn libgdx eventually to try out Android. Anyways that is not the topic of this thread, I already discussed that on here.
I want to pick up a book or two about specific game fields such as physics, AI, etc. Since I want to take this one subject at a time, what would you say are the topics I should explore first, before some of the others? My general idea is to develop my games in my own way, and then use specific books to gain knowledge of how to better implement parts of my games. I feel like this will really help me to learn. So for example if I made a SHMUP with very slow brute force collisions because thats all I could figure out, I would read up on physics and realize how I could do it better, you get the idea. So what are the "must know" areas that I should learn in more detail if I want to really be a better game programmer?And is there a particular order that you would recommend I read in? Realistically I cant do it all at once, Im thinking of getting one book at a time on one topic and truly understanding it/learning to implement it.
