Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python - By Albert Sweigart

(Working title)

• Cover
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Chapter 1 - Introduction
• Chapter 2 - "Hello World!" - Your First Program
• Chapter 3 - Guess the Number
• Guess the Number, trace 1
• Guess the Number, trace 2
• Chapter 4 - Jokes
• Jokes, trace 1
• Chapter 5 - Dragon World
• Dragon World, trace 1
• Chapter 6 - Hangman (covers some more advanced string manipulation)
• Chapter 7 - Tic Tac Toe (intro to very basic AI)
• Chapter 8 - Bagels (simple game, no major new concepts)

Incomplete sections:

• Chapter 9 - Sonar (simple game, introduces cartesian coordinate system)
• Chapter 10 - Othello (simple game, no major new concepts)
• Chapter 11 - Secret Code (covers string manipulation, the idea of data as numbers, some differences from "Secret1")
• Chapter 12 - Lights Out (simple game, no major new concepts)
• Glossary

Source and compiled binaries (.exe):

• Games and source - The Python source code and compiled .exe's of the games (made with py2exe) if you do not have Python installed.
• Source only - The Python source code for the games in IYOCGwP.

Axed Chapters that will appear in a sequel book:

• Chapter ? - Using the debugger
• Chapter x - Secret Code 1 (covers string manipulation, the idea of data as numbers)
• Chapter x - Secret Code 2 (more of the same, also makes extensive use lists of lists)
• Chapter x - Secret Code 3 (more of the same)
• Chapter x - Code Cracker (covers file i/o, also has the computer due massive amounts of calculation (which I always thought was cool))
• Dictionary text file needed for Code Cracker program
• Chapter x - Square Dodge (covers keyboard input and more GUI & graphics)
• Chapter x - Tic Tac Toe with Artificial Intelligence (goes deeper into AI and creating computer simulations)
• Chapter x - Quack, Squeak, Meow (a GUI game with sound and loading bitmaps)

IYOCGwP Forum is now working. Leave comments/advice/criticism there!

General Status

• 4/29/08 - Added comments to othello and lights out. Placed a zip of all source and their py2exe compiled versions online.

• 4/28/08 - Added the forum to the website. Added comments to the sonar game.

• 4/27/08 - Finished code for Sonar. Some modifications to the other chapters. Completed a copy right page.

• 4/26/08 - Finished the Bagels chapter. Finished code for Lights Out. Some modifications to the other chapters.

• 4/25/08 - Added the Othello source code.

• 4/23/08 - Added a couple new chapters, against my better judgement. Bagels and Othello. Code is complete for Bagels. Also re-added the first secret code chapter, just to give a taste in this book. That pushes back my expected deadline a week or so.

• 4/22/08 - Better table of contents and glossary. Minor updates to various chapters. Resizing some images in Chapter 2. Experimenting with PDFCreator.

• 4/21/08 - Completed the Tic Tac Toe chapter. Beginning to go back and edit the earlier chapters and fill out the glossary.

• 4/20/08 - Another five pages done on the Tic Tac Toe chapter.

• 4/19/08 - More work done on the Tic Tac Toe chapter.

• 4/18/08 - Finished the rough draft of the Hangman chapter. Content-wise it is complete, though I still need to go through and edit it.

• 4/17/08 - Almost finished with the Hangman chapter. Minor code updates to Tic Tac Toe

• 4/14/08 - After a long pause, minor updates. Decided to cut out the remaining chapters and put those in a sequel book. This reduces my scope to the basics and keeps the book at a more digestible size.

• 2/28/08 - More updates to the hangman chapter. Man, this is getting to be a huge chapter. Added an estimated page count at the bottom of this page.

• 2/26/08 - More updates to the hangman chapter.

• 2/01/08 - Minor updates to the hangman chapter.

• 1/29/08 - Fixed traces (compatible with IE). Added flow charts for Dragon World and Hangman. (Hopefully this will help teach the reader how to design programs themselves instead of just copying them from the book.) Changed the CSS file for the book so that I use a serif font in general.

  I have also finalized the chapters and Table of Contents. Which is good, because this book had a bad habit of feature creep. I can always add in new games & chapters later.

• 01/28/08 - Added trace of the Dragon World program.

• 01/24/08 - Added trace of the Jokes program, editted the trace of the second Guess the Number.

• 01/23/08 - Proof-read chapter 5. Minor edits and corrections. Improved the cover image.

• 01/22/08 - Created the cover art and proof-read chapters 1 to 4 (made minor edits and corrections).

• 01/14/08 - Uploaded the secret code & code cracker programs. Those chapters currently have no explanation, but I didn't want to sit on the code any longer. Square Dodge is a GUI game that requires PyGame to run. The code for these programs will probably need cleaning up before I write out the chapters for them.

Eventually, I would also like to add chapters on three things: 1) how to use the debugger, 2) how to plan out a program, and 3) a general study question chapter (simply "what is the output of this code", or "write a program that outputs xxx".

• 01/11/08 - More updates to the Hangman chapter. Got rid of the dialogs (they'll be too distracting without adding any real value. I'll use the animal graphics in some of the games though.) Also completed the javascript for a program stepper to let people see how the program executes step by step.

• 12/16/07 - Started on the Hangman and Tic Tac Toe chapters. Added a couple of "dialogs". The dialogs serve to review the content in the book through a socratic technique. Not sure if that adds to the book at all, and it may get axed later. But I liked the format in Godel Escher Bach, so I'm emulating it here.

• 12/10/07 - Finished Dragon World chapter. Starting the hang man and tic tac toe chapters (the source code is complete).

• 10/28/07 - Generally started on this project with outlines and brain storming.

Guiding Principles

• The book should teach real programming in a real programming language. Click-and-drag "game generators" or fake, dumbed-down kiddie programming languages are to be avoided.
• Games are fun. The book should not teach programming like a mathematics textbook.
• Concise is good.
• It is easier to learn principles from examples than to teach principles to construct examples. Show them game code examples, not abstract programming concepts or a reference manual.
• If it takes more than 200 words to explain an idea, there's probably a better way to explain it.
• The book is useless unless it makes them want to program.
• I don't have a sense of humor. Adding extra words will not make the book more fun, just longer.
• Pictures that explain concepts are helpful. Pictures for the sake of pictures are a distraction. (Save the pretty pictures for the cover.)
• Anyone should be able to point to any sentence and demand I give them the reason that that particular sentence has not been excluded from the book.
• I'll admit, this book is probably geared for nerdy kids, not the general area of children's education. If your kid's favorite toys are Lego and Final Fantasy-style video games (or probably Pokemon cards, in this day and age), this is probably a good book for them. I'd rather have a great book for that subpopulation than a mediocre book for everyone. But everyone can still learn Python from this book (including teens and adults).

Summary

(You can leave comments on the blog page for this book.)

I am putting together a book focused on teaching programming to children (around the age of 9 or 10, the same age I was when I started to program in BASIC). My own experience was finding Fred Dignazio's 1983 book, "Invent Your Own Computer Games". It gave my Nintendo-obsessed mind a very nice primer on programming in BASIC. I liked the format (each chapter gave the source code for a new game, and then explained the code afterwards) but found the content lacking (it did not go into action games with a program loop, or graphics and sound).

After looking on the web, I was dismayed by the lack of content in this area that was freely available. All the books and websites were either 1) teaching some made-for-kids programming language instead of a real language or 2) were boring adult programming books with kiddie cartoons added in.

I think the Hackety Hack project is in the proper spirit, and their manifesto embodies a lot of the ideas that I espouse. The Salon article, Why Johnny Can't Code touches on this as well.

My book will serve as the book I wish I had when I was young. It will cover game programming, teach by example, and use a real programming language (in this case, Python). The working title is "Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python" until I come up with something better.
I have a few of the chapters complete, and will be publishing more as they come about. The final book will be published as a PDF (as will the individual chapters when I get around to doing so).

I welcome any comments or criticisms.

IYOCGwP Forum is now working. Leave comments/advice/criticism there!

Current estimated page count:

Cover	1
Table of Contents	1+
Copyright info	1
Dedication, note to readers and programmers, etc..	0+
Introduction	8
Hello World	22
Guess the Number	25
Jokes	7
Dragon World	25
Hangman	56
Tic Tac Toe	32
Bagels	8
Sonar	12+
Othello	21+
Secret Code	4+
Lights Out	13+
Glossary	0+
Total	229+

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