Every month, new books are released, and we’d like to share the ones with you we think should not be missed. This time, we’re focussing on Game Programming. Please let us know what you think, and happy reading!

Best Upcoming Game Programming Books of August 2017

• Practical Augmented Reality: A Guide to the Technologies, Applications, and Human Factors for AR and VR (Usability)
  

  This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the technologies, applications and human factors considerations of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) systems and wearable computing devices. Beginning with a Foreword by NASA research scientist Victor Luo, Practical Augmented Reality starts by explaining the mechanics of human sight, hearing and touch, showing how these perceptual mechanisms (and their performance ranges) directly dictate the design and use of wearable displays, 3-D audio systems, and tactile/force feedback devices. Practical Augmented Reality thoroughly considers the human factors of these systems, including sensory and motor physiology constraints, monocular and binocular depth cues, elements contributing to visually-induced motion sickness and nausea, as well as vergence-accommodation conflicts.

• The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design
  

  Making a successful video game is hard. The game user experience accounts for the whole experience players have with a video game, from first hearing about it to navigating menus and progressing in the game. In a nutshell, UX is about understanding the gamer’s brain: understanding human capabilities and limitations to anticipate how a game will be perceived, the emotions it will elicit, how players will interact with it, and how engaging the experience will be.

• Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C# (2nd Edition)
  

  Master the Unity Game Engine to Design and Develop Games for Web, Mobile, Windows, macOS, and More. Award-winning game designer and professor Jeremy Gibson Bond has spent more than a decade teaching game design and building great games. Part I: Game Design and Paper Prototyping • The Layered Tetrad framework: a synthesis of 50 years of game design theory • Proven practices for brainstorming and refining game designs through the iterative process of design • Methods and tools to manage game projects and small teams • Processes to make playtesting and feedback easier Part II: Digital Prototyping with Unity and C# • Chapters that guide you through learning C# the right way • Instruction that takes you from no prior programming knowledge through object-oriented programming • Deep exploration of Unity, today’s most popular game engine on both macOS and Windows • Methods for understanding and debugging code issues you encounter Part III: Game Prototype Examples and Tutorials • In-depth tutorials for seven different game prototypes, including a simple action game, a space shooter, a solitaire card game, a word game, and a top-down adventure • Instructions to compile these games for PC, web, or any of the dozens of other release platforms supported by Unity • Improved structure and layout that makes the steps of each tutorial easier to follow • A completely new Dungeon Delver prototype not present in the first edition.

• Final Fantasy V (Boss Fight Books)
  

  When Final Fantasy V was released for the Japanese Super Famicom in 1992, the game was an instant hit, selling two million copies in the first two months alone. But the game was dubbed “too hardcore” for a Western audience and was swapped out with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, a simplistic new game tailor-made for Americans. That didn’t stop a teenage Chris Kohler from tracking down Final Fantasy V.

• Unreal Engine 4 for Design Visualization: Developing Stunning Interactive Visualizations, Animations, and Renderings (Game Design)
  

  UE4’s stunning visual quality, cutting-edge toolset, unbeatable price (free. Unreal Engine 4 for Design Visualization delivers the knowledge visualization professionals need to leverage UE4’s immense power. Shannon answers the questions most often asked about UE4 visualization, addressing issues ranging from data import and processing to lighting, advanced materials, and rendering.

• Super Power, Spoony Bards, and Silverware: The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Platform Studies)
  

  In this book, Dominic Arsenault reminds us that although the SNES was a strong platform filled with high-quality games, it was also the product of a short-sighted corporate vision focused on maintaining Nintendo’s market share and business model. Arsenault argues that Nintendo’s conservative business strategies and resistance to innovation during the SNES years explain its market defeat by Sony’s PlayStation. Because of the SNES platform’s architecture, Arsenault explains, Nintendo resisted these changes and continued to focus on traditional gameplay genres.

• Hello Scratch!: Learn to Program by Making Arcade Games
  

  Hello, Scratch. is a how-to book that helps parents and kids work together to learn programming skills by creating new versions of old retro-style arcade games with Scratch. By building games, readers not only create fun finished products, but they’ll learn important programming skills along the way.

• I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer / Entertainment System Platform (Platform Studies)
  

  In the 1987 Nintendo Entertainment System videogame Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, a character famously declared: I AM ERROR. Nintendo games were rife with mistranslated texts, but, as Altice explains, Nintendo’s translation challenges were not just linguistic but also material, with consequences beyond simple misinterpretation. videogame market as the redesigned Entertainment System; Nintendo’s breakthrough console title Super Mario Bros.

• Pro HTML5 Games: Learn to Build your Own Games using HTML5 and JavaScript
  

  Build your next game on a bigger scale withPro HTML5 Games. This essential book teaches you to master advanced game programming in HTML5. Understand how to develop complex, bolder games and become an HTML5 games pro usingPro HTML5 Gamestoday.

• On Animation: The Director’s Perspective Vol 2 (Volume 2)
  

  On Animation: The Director’s Perspective is a collection of interviews with 21 animated feature-film directors. Interviews cover in-depth discussion of each director’s career — focusing on their creative development, their films, lesson learned and advice. The interviews were edited and produced by Ron Diamond.

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