Expand My Bookshelf ( And My Mind? )

I'm interested in adding some more books to my bookshelf, and especially things related to general game programming theory and algorithms. Not language-specific, and not non-game oriented.

So I guess game design, math, physics, ai, general game programming, that sort of thing.

At the moment, my shelf contains :

Beginning Lua Programming - Kurt Jung & Aaron Brown
3D Game Textures - Luke Ahearn
Shaders for Game Programmers and Artists - Sebastien St Laurent
AI Game Programming Wisdom Vol 1 - Steve Rabin
3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development - Ian Parberry & Fletcher Dunn
Mathematics For Game Developers - Christopher Tremblay

and a couple of books each on C# and C++ ( but I already said not language-specific, didn't I? )

I was thinking of adding volumes 2 and 3 of the AI Game Programming Wisdom series, but volume 2 seems to contain very little of interest compared to Volume 1, and Volume 3 doesn't seem to be as specific about what it contains as the first two volumes.

I was kinda interested in Game Programming Gems too, but I get the impression that they're a bit C++ centric and that they're a bit hit and miss, so not necessarily great value if half the articles are of no interest.

AI for Game Developers by David M. Bourg looked good, but I read a couple of bad reviews.

Programming Game AI By Example by Matt Buckland looked interesting too, although I'm not sure if it contains much I won't already find in AIGPW #1.

Haven't really spotted anything else I fancy on maths, physics or game design.

Anyone have any personal recommendations on the subject that might help me expand my mind and bookcase? Preferably avoiding too much mathematic notation ( even AI Game Programming Wisdom let me down here by jumping into complex mathematical notation on pretty simple algorithms not always with code to back it up. )

The Joy of Sex? :P

The "Gang of Four" book is a classic and a good read.

Game Physics Engine Development has helped me a lot with the concepts and algorithms for building a physics engine (sorry it's language specific).

My other half is a few thousand miles away at the moment, so I think I better hold off on that one. Right now there's not much point in expanding my <snip>


Is it much use for someone who programs predominantly in BMax and C? I've always understood it to be heavily about interfaces and templates/generics and so probably only useful for people who program in C++, C#, Java or some of the more obscure languages like Ada and Smalltalk.

I'd recommend the following from my shelf
Code Complete
Beginning OpenGL
Special Effects Game Programming with DirectX
Beginning Math and Physics for Game Programmers
Artificial Intelligence for Games (Superb)
Programming Game AI by example
AIGPW 1 & 2 (2 is a bit more specific than 1. I've found it interesting rather than useful).
.
The AI4G and Programming Game Ai books overlap each other but, IMO, not AIGPW.

does anyone know of books that just use pseudo-code?
like for example if someone gives me a tutorial in Astar pathfinding using explanations, instead of just using code then its very easy to understand.
But if someone gives me a bunch of C++ code I cant understand it at all.
Most books have C++ examples and are useless to me.

For example I would like a tutorial on how to do line-of-sight code for a 2d isometric game, but havent been able to find anything online

Nah, it's a Sherlock Holmes story.

Thanks TonyG, definitely a couple in there I'll be going for. I think I might go for Artificial Intelligence for Games first. That's the Ian Millington book, right?

Chunkations: According to reviews on Amazon, the book TonyG recommended ( Artificial Intelligence for Games ) is all about pseudo code. It does, apparently have a CD which contains C++ code examples, but all the book code is pseudo code, so they say.

John: Ohhhhh, that's no use then. I'm not writing an afoot game.

nice, sry for diverting the thread a bit :()

have you ever bought any game design books?
I bought 3 and found them to be kind of useless,
swords and circuitry is an entertaining read though.
http://www.amazon.com/Swords-Circuitry-Designers-Role-Playing-Development/dp/0761532994

Yep, and the 'TG' Amazon review is mine.
Other than a few words (and the fact its pseudocode) a lot of it even looks a bit like BlitzMax.

Struct Noderecord
     node
     connection
     costsofar
startRecord = new NodeRecord()
startRecord.node = start
startRecord.connection = none
startRecord.costSoFar=0

etc

Ahh! Got me!

I've bought once a book called "Neural Networks & Fuzzy Logic - Second Edition", and that book is scary. I love to read it when I want to learn how higher than human intelligence works, or when I feel bored because I'm so far ahead of other people again. That book truly brings everyone back to earth, and says: learn your lesson here first:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/81314/C-Neural-Networks-Fuzzy-Logic-Valluru-b-Rao

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

Well I bought Aritifical Intelligence for Games over the weekend and that seems to be an excellent book so far. It's a nice accompaniment to the AI Wisdom book, because it's a broad guide to every subject and then you have the AI Wisdom books to read up on specific topics or even just to spark off ideas.

Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a copy of Design Patterns by Elisabeth Freeman and Eric Freeman in the Head First series. It's not quite the Gang Of Four book that FlameDuck recommended, but I've been browsing through it and it's a very readable guide to OOP and design patterns and it goes into a lot of examples ( good and bad ) which I think will make it a very useful reference.