Book Review: Google SketchUp for Game Design: Beginner's Guide

Today I'm writing a review on a very special book: Google SketchUp for Game Design: Beginner's Guide, by Robin de Jongh, Packt Publishing. I really enjoyed this book, and to be clear and organized, I'll write my review as definite points (as usual =) ).

Pros:

• As the book title mentioned, it is a guide for game design and beginners. So the book did not only go from bottom up in Google SketchUp, but also went to explain the basics of other applications that can get involved in the game design process like GIMP, and even introduced one of the best game engines: Unity.
• All tools and websites introduced are free, or have trial versions/accounts.
• The book author stressed on a very important thing: honesty, and the cover image is an example of this honesty. Because what you see on this cover is what you get and can do yourself using what you learned in Google SketchUp.
• The way the author explains is not boring or lengthy. But on the contrary, it was very smooth, interesting, and straight to the point.
• The author stressed on introducing the basic and important features of each applications without getting deep, which I considered it a very nice method in dealing with a beginner in any application. Beside some tips and tricks, and notes on how bigger companies do this work and manage such tasks.
• The book in general was like a quick tour in the world of assets and game design, opening some doors I might not see if I just go to learn Google SketchUp alone.

Cons:

• The websites and links provided inside the book were not all working. Some links were removed and some had different sub-directories, but somehow I managed to get to most of them by a quick search.
• The author sometimes missed some small details that -for a lazy beginner- can be crucial to get a step done. Some small details like the order of marking objects or how to use a certain tool. But the athor has indicated that this book needs some work, so there is no place for laziness.

All in all, I would recommend this book for reading, whether you are using Google SketchUp for game asset design, game level design, or even as an architect.

Book Review: Play Framework Cookbook

Ok, after some reading in parts of the book and touring some other parts (remember my previous entry?), here are my notes about this book. But first I have to mention the beckground I come from:
- Basically I come from a front-end development environment.
- C++ is my main interest, then comes Java.
- I've just started to learn Play framework and found it interesting to go deeper into.

Now let's get to the review:

1- From the book intro, the author indicated that proceeding with a Play tutorial plus some web developer skills—HTML and JavaScript. So I thought it would not be that hard to get started, and it wasn't at the very beginning, then it accelerated very quickly that I had to skip more parts chapter after chapter. Maybe I needed more that some knowledge or skills, I needed the "web culture".

2- I liked how the examples were introduced along with test cases. Examples on the internet may settle with some code and leave the testing to the user, so the book made it more professional.

3- Some code parts seemed to be eligible to be put inside real projects, not just dummy examples. They were well designed.

4- Most of the times I notice how the author tends to to stop at some part of the explanation or move faster. So I sometimes had the feeling that parts of the book were more like highlights.

5- This book can be useful as a reference while coding or preparing materials for a course/project. But not a solid tutorial to take (remember my background, it is still useful as I mentioned).

To Read: Play Framework Cookbook

Today I had the opportunity to receive a softcopy of a new book: Play Framework Cookbook , by Alexander Reelsen, Packt Publishing.

And since Play Framework has not so many books to find, It was a good opportunity I cannot miss. What is attractive in this book? From the first look, it does not require deep experience with Play Framework. You just need to follow a couple of examples ( link1 , link2 ) on the internet to be ready for this book which already explains some basics in the first chapter and promises to mention some basic throughout the book.

Now let me start reading and give my review. If you are in a hurry to see the book from inside, here is a link to a sample chapter: (download)

Stay tuned ...