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Developing Games in Java Review by Brandon Tom
It's OK, But It Lacks Thorough Explanations
First off, this book is fairly easily to read if you have some programming background. This book is obviously not aimed at beginners, so it will require atleast a basic knowledge of Java to make any sort of sense.
What I liked about this book is the rather large number of projects you have to build right from the get go. However, what was most disappointing about this book was the lack of explanations as to what, exactly, is going on in the code. For instance, his section on mouselooking basically dumps two pages of code on you, filled with new algorithms that are accompanied by zero details about how they work or why things are done that way. There aren't even comments in the code that step you through it.
That aspect of the book is really saddens me because that's all that seperates it from a typing exercise and a great lessong in game programming.
Having said all of that. There are some basic functional things you gather that are useful if you are brand new to game programming.
What I had hoped to gather out of this book was more than just code. I hoped that there would be principles that I could extrapolate and take with me from project to project. Regretfully, I don't think this book accomplished that goal.