BlitzMax Book Out This Month
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Beginners Area/BlitzMax Book Out This Month
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| It is with great pleasure that we announce today that we will start publishing our premier title Games Programming for the Absolute Beginner with BlitzMax this month (August 2006). See our publications section for more information on the book and to download the sample code. Games Programming for the Absolute Beginner with BlitzMax is priced at £29.99 and will be available to purchase from sloankelly.net as soon as the first print run is complete. Until then, check out a sample chapter from the book. blitzmaxbook.com Last edited 2011 |
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| Until then, check out a sample chapter from the book All I could find was a dead link? |
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| My bad :o) The sample chapter was missed out when we transfered the files from our web development box to the internet site. |
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| This is not a tutorial, Its an advert for a Book. I Think you should have posted this as a "Product"/News (On Home Page), I dont know how to, but Its a lot better place for it. Im sure someone will say how. |
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| Do you want me to remove the post? |
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| Sorry, I think I was editing my post as you posted. If you look at the bottom of "Home", there is a "Submit News" link. I think you would do good to post it there |
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| Sorry about that. I've never seen that link before! If there are any moderators listening, you can delete this thread... Sorry again. Bad netiquette. |
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| Interesting indeed, can you add rss to your website so I'll be updated when a chance occurs. |
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| I think this is relevant to the tutorials section & I'm happy to see it here. Could this be what Max needs? Ever since it came out I'm sure there are people besides me who have wanted a sizeable amount of information in one place about how to use it (but I don't wish to speak for anyone else.) I would have liked to have seen some more concrete examples of code in the sample .pdfs but nevertheless I wish you every success with this book and hope it will prove to be a valuable resource. |
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| This should be packaged with every copy of BlitzMax. |
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| At last! I can save my eyes from RGB radiation for a while! (remember that Amiga demo?) lol Any idea of what date the book will actually be for sale from? |
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| Website says (August 2006) but nothing specific. |
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| I suggest someone email the author requesting additional information: info@... (My laptop is at home) |
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| This looks great, I know there are tecniques and gaps in my knowledge. |
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| Website says (August 2006) but nothing specific. It says available in 2 weeks (posted 11 August) that means 25 August. |
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| He added rss as requested, cool "Just a brief note to say that I've included an RSS feed for the site for those of you with readers, or IE7 / Firefox / Safari / Opera ... The list goes on!" |
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| Actually I think this should be made sticky - and ideally on the front page for the foreseeable future (rather than the advert placed there for now). BlitzMax is software only, and nothing beats a reference manual - especially when away from the computer. Newcomers to BlitzMax would find it very helpfull indeed. Ofcourse the book might not be very good - we'll have to see (although the samples and table of content look promising). |
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| Is the book only available from sloankelly.net, or will it turn up in the online bookstore I usually buy my books from? |
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| Hi all. Just a short note to let you know what's happening. The book is currently available through Amazon.co.uk - no international sites as yet. I've been told "that takes time". The book will be available throught sloankelly.net too, and that link will go live when the proof copy has been checked and we make sure that it's OK for everyone to read! We're working with our printer who has a partner in the US for distribution in North America. I'll have more details later on that. Thank you all for your interest so far! The web site has an RSS feed (thanks, DannyD!) with up-to-date info. PS. As an aside, Amazon are charging an extra GBP1.99 as a "sourcing fee" this is because the book is still classed as "not published". This is because we are waiting for the proof copy (which SHOULD be delivered this week) to check it over before we set the "published" flag in their database. |
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| Sounds good. Can't wait for the reviews. :) |
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| Nice job, Sloan. I have a question...how large is the book? Thanks, Jason |
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| The book is 466 pages long. A4 size, so approx 210mm x 297mm. And it's perfect bound (paperback) |
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| Any chance for an ebook version? |
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| Hi Bit puzzled. Amazon says 4-6 weeks. Is this actually released yet? Sin |
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| As you all have probably surmised, we have had to slip the publication of Games Programming for the Absolute Beginner with BlitzMax until mid-September. We received a proof copy of the book back from the printers, and because of a number of issues with the copy we were left with no choice but to re-do the layout of the book. The content / page length / dimensions of the book will not change. I can confirm, however, that the book will be published on the 18th of September 2006 and we will take pre-orders from the 11th of September 2006. Please accept our apologies in this delay, but we would like to give you a quality product that you will enjoy and be happy with. The files for the book will also be available on the web site from the 18th of September 2006. @Ricardo_C: There are no plans for an eBook .... yet. |
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| Well, this is news... bad for those of us that are dying to get ahold of a fresh copy ;) At the least, we all have a target as to when we can see something :) Bright and early the 11th, you can expect some visits Sloan :P |
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| Order my copy from his website today. |
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| Sloan, it would be good if you could strike a deal with Blitz Research to include a CD containing a demo copy of BlitzMax with the book; it'll be a win-win situation for both you and Blitz Research, I would guess. Anyway, good luck with the book. |
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| Any news on the North American release? I would like to get this for my nephew. |
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| I hope I get mine next week! |
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| You should offer more than just the Paypal payment option. |
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| Hi all. It's been a rather trying week for us here. We've had some problems with the printing, and they [the printers] have said that they will "rush out" the pre-paid orders this week. I was hoping for this to happen be last week, but this was not the case. If anyone wants to buy me a beer, I'll talk about it at length. Please please please bare with us. Once this week is out of the way, we can concentrate our efforts on a (hopefully) trouble free North American release. Once again, we are really sorry that this title has been delayed. You will have your books shortly! With regard to different pay options, we decided to offer the PayPal option for the moment. When the publishers database is updated, orders will be available through Amazon too. Hope that helps. Regards, Sloan |
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| Has anyone received this book yet, does anyone know how good or bad it is. :-) |
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| Dav3. Read the post above yours posted 1 day ago. |
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| Cheers DannyD, wasn't paying attention, didn't realise when Sloan posted. Oops. Guess me go hide in down stairs closet and not come out till new year. ;-) |
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| I recieved an e-mail yesterday from Sloan saying the books will be with us next week. |
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| The book can be purchased from www.sloankelly.net and is now available for US/Canada, UK, Europe and the Rest of the World. Hopefully it won't be long before those who pre-ordered in the UK/Europe get your books - the forecast for delivery is this week. Again, apologies for the delay in delivery. |
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| My order is in, we'll see how long it takes to get to the middle of the US. |
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| Im one of the ones waiting for the pre-order, hopefully will recieve this week but as Sloan has pointed out the its nobodies fault as such. Just have to be patient ! |
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| Ordered my copy through Amazon - don't know when I'll receive it though. |
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| My Pre order hasn't arrived in Ireland yet hopefully next week. |
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| My preorder hasn't arrived either and I'm in Denmark. Lets hope it will be here next week. I'm looking forward to this release. I have not yet really worked with bmax, and I hope this book will boost my coding in bmax. |
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| I just got an E-mail from Sloan, the book is still at the printers. We just have to wait a bit longer. |
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| I ordered mine from amazon.co.uk .... looks like they (amazon) think it will be available in early November.... PLS |
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| Any1 got their book yet? |
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| nope |
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| YES! I got mine today Recommended. So nice to have an A4 sized book with plenty of examples and diagrams etc Many thanks for this, well worth the wait ! Graham |
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| I got mine too. |
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| I Recieved mine today, initial impressions are good and I would recommend it. Takes you from the very basics through to making your own games. I think the choice of games chosen was good. Tank Attack Yeah. It would have been good to have a cd with the Blitzmax Demo and the source code on, like with the other Blitz books out there. Having books about Blitz is a good thing and hopefully more will come out. I hope sales do well so Sloan brings out an advanced book. |
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| Yeah, I recieved mine this week as well. I give it a solid two thumbs up! I found it more resourceful in areas I didn't expect it to. For instance little things I didn't get from the BRL docs, such as variable methods (ie string.ToLower, ToUpper, etc) It was a nice find considering I was used to that iin other languages. I found the book rather informational as well. I've read about half way through the book, and everything so far compiles as is. I've even went to the extent of doing every example and drawing up my sprites as described in the book. :) Thats serious fun. I basically stopped at Project II (Tank Attak), and will resume again tonight if possible. OOP is next. I really like the progressive approach and the examples appropriately building you up. I've written games in other languages and I definately think this is a good addition to the library. I also agree on a sequel to this book describing out more advanced areas. I do feel this is a great way to get your start in the world of game development! |
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| And I got mine today (just now). Juhuu, thanks Sloan! Can't wait to get started. |
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| Anyon else got a problem downloading the source code from Sloan´s homepage? |
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| I mis-typed the URL to the zip files on the web page. I have corrected the problem and so the files should be downloadable now. Happy reading! |
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| Thanks a lot Sloan! |
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| Got mine, nice format. |
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| I have say this looks perfect for my nephew, you seem to cover all the basics and he has never programed before, now I have to buy him a copy of BMax. |
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| Hey Scott, That works out well right? You buy the book, now you buy another copy of BlitzMax! Oh wait... this works out for your nephew! :P You are a good Uncle bro :) I sure wish you were my uncle when I was a lad ;) Seriously, I agree that the book has a decent format and covers a nice range of topics in an understandable way. |
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| well he has worked with the demo and really taken to it. I've been giving him a bit of help, and I'm impressed with how he has taken to it. I'm hoping when he gets the paid for version he will really take off. :) cheers |
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| Got mine in Ireland today. Will update this thread once I get a chance to work with it. |
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| <sulk> Not got mine yet...... It's not fair..... |
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| I ordered mine on October 20th, it's November 9th now and still nothing...no update email saying that there's a delay or ETA or anything. I'm in Canada, should that make a difference? |
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| I ordered mine on Oct 18th - nothing yet either (I'm in New Zealand). |
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| Don't panic yet. I'm in the UK and ordered mine around the same time (early/mid oct) and it hasn't arrived yet. I contacted Sloan and he said there is a backlog due to the first print run issues. |
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| Mine arrived today, so I guess your books will be a bit longer.. |
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| I ordered mine via Amazon and got it within a week. :-) They have no more in stock last time I looked now, but the wait is worth it. This is an excellent book. Sin |
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| oredered mine on 20. october and still nothing! i live in Switzerland, which means pretty close to England. ...and no word from Sloan, which disappoints me most! |
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| i live in Switzerland, which means pretty close to England. ... but mostly uphill. :) |
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| BlitzMax Delays Monday, 20th November 2006 After a number of weeks, we have finally over-come our distribution issues for the UK/Europe. For those of you purchasing the book from this site, delivery will now be within the working week. For those of you in North America, we are in discussion with our distributors to get a better idea as to how long it takes to deliver. For the rest of the world, we will try to deliver within two working weeks. We are greatful to all of you who showed patience for your order to be delivered, and we hope that you are enjoying your purchase. If you have still to receive your purchase, please contact us and we will let you know how your order has progressed. |
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| Hi all. First off, sorry for any delays / problems in processing your orders. We've tried to keep people in the loop as much as possible. We've had a number of 'process issues' that have plagued the early orders (anything up to about the 24th October) for UK/Europe. It seems that our American distributor has, as far as we are aware, had a better time than our European. We have brought the Majority of World (UK/Europe/RoW) shipping in-house since 1st November, and so orders are turned around now within the week from when they arrive at our door. This doesn't help those who have ordered from us and who still have not received their books. If anyone is in this situation, please contact us at sales@.... We can check our records to see when we sent orders to the distributor. It should be noted that our UK/Europe/RoW distributor have ironed out the bugs in their system and are capable of delivering to those areas. We feel though that by us delivering the books we have more control over their distribution. Once again, we apologise for the delay / lack of communication. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding your order. @frolicy - Can you email sales@... so that I can personally check your order? Regards, Sloan |
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| Got it last week on friday. Already (mostly skim) read it. Great job. Very nice one. BRL should seriously consider selling it. This would have made my first steps in blitzmax a lot easier. Sloan, if you are going to write a follow up (intermediate or advanced book) let me know. I'll buy it for sure. Also I would like to suggest a couple of code snippets to be included: handling multiple screen resolutions, graphic layers, particle engines, etc. Stuff I have been coding thru the last couple of months for my next game... PLS ps: next time round I suggest a smaller format, a4 is way to big. |
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| I must admit, I'm the opposite to PLS about the A4 size. I loved the size, it makes the font nice and big and reminds me of the teaching books I got at school. If you dont have much room on your computer desk, I suppose it could be a minor issue. :-D Excellent stuff. Sin |
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| Finally received my copy today. First impressions are very positive! One problem though... The last page is supposed to be 450, but mine is 448. So I'm missing two pages of the Index (i.e. everything after the letter 'L'). Is anyone else's copy like this? |
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| I was one of the first to recieve the book and in my copy I got page 450. |
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| Oh, thanks. I was wondering whether it might be a bad batch, or just my copy. I guess I'll just have to print out the two missing pages from the online sample .pdf and paste them in or something. |
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| Yeah, I was of the first to get one too. My copy has all 450. |
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| finally - it arrived; after 7 weeks! first impression: quite good and suited for a real beginner like me! thanks so much, SLOAN, for bringing stuff to PC and Mac !!! ...and, yes it is 450 pages and complete! |
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| Sloan, Is there a plan for Amazon.com to carry your book? I would like to order it but I'm not much of a fan of paypal, etc. Thanks! Jason |
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| @Jason: We'll look into that. Don't know technically why it's not available through Amazon.com, .co.uk holds it. |
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| Sloan, Are you working on another BM book? |
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| Any more feedback out there now that some time has been spent with the book? I am concerned about the $70 price tag. I have 1500 page computer reference books that were cheaper than that (and I'm not as tight as most of the Blitzers ;) |
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| I would be interested in buying the PDF file of the book if possible? |
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| Happy New year everyone! @Lordfire - sorry there are no plans to produce a PDF version of the book at this time. |
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| @Why0Why: This book is worth the bucks. Its cleverly designed and gets a noob into developing games rather quickly. It's an easy read, and fairly easy to follow the examples. Being an experienced software engineer myself, I found this book to be of great value for any level developer with BlitzMax. Concepts you learn in this book will also carry to other languages. Another point of interest is that Game development books in general are more expensive than general programming books. I too feel your pain on prices, but this book it worth the price. :) |
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| Yeah its quite costly O_O! Im currently waiting for mine to arrive in the next 1-9 days. Hope its very good and useful! |
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| Thanks for the feedback. That is what I was looking for. I like to support the Blitz community. I bought Grey's Framework and haven't used it yet, but I liked the idea and effort. Most of the 400 page newbie type game books in the US run about $29.99. That is one of the reasons I wanted more info. |
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| I have to say overall I'm disappointed with this book. It's overpriced and the production quality is inferior. I also found it to be riddled with errors - evidence of a lack of adequate proof-reading by the editor. Even though it's pitched at the "Absolute Beginner" the content is totally lacking in any advanced concepts - not even a brief introduction. There is no discussion of modules. There is no real advice on design issues. It completely ignores Linux and OS X users. Most of the material (OOP introduction, for example) appears to have been ripped directly from the BlitzMax help screens. And I did not like to see the liberal use of the goto statement - a very poor example to set for beginners! There's really nothing in this book that can't be found in the BlitzMax help screens or in the forums on this site. Save your money - I don't recommend it. |
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| I looked on amazon.com since I live here in the states and I could not see it available for purchase. also, i need express delivery, like UpS or FedX, and would like to know when amazon.com will receive products for stock? |
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| Hi Newbie. The books are not available from Amazon.com at this time - we're not sure why and are currently investigating. The book is available from the web site via our US printer/distributor but it can take up to two weeks to deliver. We're based in the UK and it was a good compromise for the North American market to provide a cheaper means to distribute our book - cheaper for you that is. There is a third, more expensive option. For express delivery, you can use the "RoW" button on the order page on the web site for the book (www.sloankelly.net). We will send your book out as soon as we get the order, and it should take less than five working days (normally) to get to the States. Hope that answers your questions. We really should have an FAQ on the web site :o) |
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| Thanks, I will look into that option |
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| My book is finally shipping today! I will have it in two days directly from Amazon UK - I am in the US. |
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| Just ordered it! |
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| I just ordered it today. I hope everything is ok because sloan's messageboard is full of spam :( Jason |
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| I ordered a copy from Amazon 6 weeks ago and was told on the 14 May that it had been 'delayed'. No idea when it'll be sent. |
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| I got my book. So far it's very good. Thanks Sloan! Jason |
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| I just bought mine! Oscar. |
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| Any alternatives? This ones too expensive IMHO. |
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| Old thread to dredge up but I was wondering just anyone have a copy of the source code you used to be able to download from sloankelly.net? Site seems long dead... |
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| I can dig it out this weekend. I'll post the link to it here when I do. |
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| The source code for the book is available for download again from http://www.blitzmaxbook.com/downloads.aspx |
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| Your site says that this may be released as an eBook, any idea when? Santa might like to buy this for me :) |
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| @arabia -- soon, working out some final details. :) 2010-11-28 - 11:54 - The domain is down while I fix the mail records. I'll let everyone know when it's back up. Last edited 2010 It's back up again. Sorry for all who wanted the files on there. Last edited 2010 |
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| I know you're probably busy with the details, but I just come here to bring support on this... It could be of a great help to me :-) |
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| I would buy it to support them :) |
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| eBook version, that would be really sweet. I'd definatly get myself a copy of that! |
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| Hi, Is the ebook version already available The Printed version is hard to find!! |
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| Hi, Where can I find the ebook to buy? Thanks |
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| Someone should really write a new book... |
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| hmm.. website is down.. Wonder what happened.. |
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| It has been down for quite some time, I think. |
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| We were hacked :( The web site is back up again, sorry about that. |
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| Any word on an eBook still Sloan? I haven't touched BM in months, but I hope to get back into it when I have some free time and would like to give your book a go if the eBook is a reasonable price (as far as eBooks go) |
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| It's coming along :) Real-life job had stopped work on the re-formatting, but the hectic period is over. For now at least. I'm looking at pricing it under the $10 mark. Last edited 2011 |
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| Sounds like a very fair price for an eBook, I'm sure you'll get plenty of sales from here and the many new Blitzers that start all the time in here. |
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| Sloan, Have you a planned release date for your ebook? I have been away from Blitz for a number of years and your book would help me to get to grips with Blitzmax. Thanks Last edited 2011 |
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| "Coming Soon" I'm afraid. We've entered a nice period of crunch at work, and so getting spare time is proving difficult. That said, we actually had a free weekend and so I've been working on the text for the eBook version. I'm about 75% through the actual content, with some editing from reader feedback and hopefully I'll be onto formatting next month. It's "coming soon", but that's sooner rather than later :) |
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| OK, thanks for the update. |
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| Will the ebook be available in Kindle format? reading PDF's on an ebook reader is never good |
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| Yes-- I have a Kobo and PDFs are not the ideal format for them; I'm aiming for the book to be read on eReader devices; Kobo, Kindle, iPad etc. Last edited 2011 |
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| Any news on the ebook version of this Sloan? |
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| I would also buy this as an ebook. |
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| Coming soon. I've submitted it to Lulu and it's currently getting catalogued. Once that happens, I'll send a note to BlitzResearch with details. Hopefully it'll be announced on the front page within the next couple of days. |
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| http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/games-programming-for-the-absolute-beginner-with-blitzmax/16248385 |
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| I have bought it but When I download it then open it in Foxit reader then it wouldnt show the Ebook of Game programming for-the-absolute-beginner-with-blitzmax :( The ebook file is bmb.epub where my Foxit reader can only read .PDF Last edited 2011 |
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| Working with Lulu to see if we can get a PDF version up on their site. Should just be a matter of downloading that version. Apologies for that, the site should have told you the format that you were downloading; currently only epub format. Mobi format (through Amazon) is coming soon. |
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| I have convert it to PDF and it is fine. :) I am reading it now :) |
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| I bought it and converted to PDF using Caliber as well. Looks fine. :) |
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| If I buy this book is it possible to print it out? |
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| If I buy this book is it possible to print it out? yes if you have Printer :) |
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| Thank you! lol I do have a printer but I wasn't sure if it was possible to print it because of drm or what ever other protection ebooks might have on them Last edited 2011 |
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| If I try to use calibre to print the book it doesn't show any pictures??? Last edited 2011 |
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| I checked the LULU website and they show this ebook as being in EPUB format. This can be handled by a free ADOBE product that can handle the EPUB and PDF formats. There is a link to Adobe from LULU. If the Kindle version will be available shortly I'll wait. This ebook is a must have for me, one way or the other! Thanks, Sloan. :-) |
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| Stoney. Caliber will convert to any format you want. Including kindle. |
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| Thanks, Kanati. I will check it out. |
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| Hi Stoney, There will be a specific Kindle version, but Kanati is correct; you can use Calibre to convert from epub to just about any other format you want, including mobi. |
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| I just DL'd the Kindle version from Amazon! :-) Thank you for making this book available again, Sloan. I can't begin to tell you how much of a help this is going to be for me! Thanks again to you,too, Kanati for your help. For me, having the Kindle version become available is the 'easy button'. |
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| Sloan, I love your book and go back to it often (Paper version). Is there any chance of you writing a book that goes into more advanced subjects like pathfinding and more detailed info on saving/loading game data. Your writing style it alot easier to understand that any other programming book i've read by quite a long way. Even if this is the only book you make for blitzmax thank you for writing it. If you also did one for monkey that would be great ;O) Pete Last edited 2011 |
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| Thank you guys! And thank you for buying the book-- print or ebook edition. I have some plans for projects in the near future. I think that Mark and all at Blitz Research do a fantastic job creating programming tools that can be used on just about every platform and I plan to support their efforts in any way I can for the considerable future. That's enough gushing from me, off to code! |
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| @Pete Carter: Stuff like pathfinding and other A.I. related things are well explained in Programming Game A.I. by Example. Which is in C++, but translates very easily. Concepts are also very well explained. Loved the book :-). |
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| Htbaa: Cool ill check it out. seams theres this book on the subject too which has great reviews. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Coding-Complete-Mike-McShaffry/dp/1584506806/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b |
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| I have that one as well :-). Haven't finish reading it yet, but it doesn't only cover A.I. It has stuff like a content cache and a process manager. Lots more as well, but I can't seem to remember... Has already been too darn long since I last picked it of the shelf! |
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| Just got paid so I think some new books would be cool, thanks for the pointers. |
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| Wow! After a few years of being off the radar with BlitzMax, I have often thought about rejoining the community and start back coding something in it again! I have one of the first copies sold for Sloan's AWESOME book, and I keep it handy by my computer desk. I occasionally peruse through the book and think that I REALLY need to get back into game development! His book has inspired a new way of thinking when building a game for me. I was rather sad to see his site disappear, but now he has a new home for it, and it looks really good. Thanks for adding the downloads section! That will help anyone that is trying to do the code. I wrote all of mine by hand from the source in the book :P It is also good to see this book make it as an eBook! Good job Sloan! I hope to see more stuff in the future. |
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| Bought the eBook a couple of weeks back. Only had a quick look so far, but it's well written from what I've read so far. Need to follow the tips above and print this at some stage, I hate reading stuff off a monitor. Haven't done any programming in the last 12 months :( But at the price for this eBook, it was impossible to pass up. Nice work Sloan. |
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| As the previous poster said, the price makes this ebook a must have for anyone seeking to learn BlitzMax. Its a great read, and has quite a few complete and entertaining examples to keep the reader interested. Great job writing this! |
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