Jacob Santos

What this is not

This is not a tutorial on how to use PHP, I’m not going to go into any basics. You are expected to understand functions, basic language syntax and usage, along with some knowledge of classes in some areas. If any parts outside of this introduction is confusing, then back out, learn PHP, and then come back.

Getting Help Rant

A person who wants to develop PHP games, either based off of prebuilt game engine, or from the start, should know some parts of PHP. It may should like common sense, but many who want to develop games do so wanting to start at the point where they are masters of coding and already several months into development. It just isn’t going to happen and will be quite frustrating, both to the person who they will ultimately try to get to help (or preferably do all the work) or to themself.

Learning PHP isn’t difficult, learning how to do it right is. When you develop something, there are going to be people who are going to try to break it and take advantage of coding and design flaws. Coding the “easy” way will sometimes lead to security flaws that will open the game up to just about anyone. PHP is great and easy language, but it will take some time to learn how to do it securely. Security techniques will be used in the following chapters, but better techniques can be found elsewhere (and should be looked at to gain a greater understanding of the problem and solution).

Reading, dreaming, and researching PHP for at least three months will change how code looks and what errors mean. The alterative is to spend the same amount of time going to chat rooms, forums, and emailing PHP developers, who won’t have the time or the patience to train you, so you would learn nothing. The alterative will also alienate those who may otherwise help you on your path of helping yourself. You learn nothing being spoon fed by other people and will be confused by even the simplest of syntax and coding problems. There will be those who may take pity, but they won’t be there to solve all of your problems.

PHP Game Programming

The primary focus is game engines. How to develop them, how to work with game engines that are already coded for you, and a general design understanding of them. Not all of the sections are coded by me, and I will be making assessments of other game engines built by other developers. Learning from another game engine and coding by example is a great, if not slow, way for learning.

The three game engines that will be used and discussed are:

1. My Own
2. Dragon Knight
3. Gamers Fusion (v3 if I can get the source)

Chapters

1. Introduction
2. User Management
3. Game Engine Development Parts
4. Dragon Knight Core
5. Dragon Knight Admin
6. Dragon Knight Hacking
7. Gamers Fusion
8. What not to do

Possibly Related Posts:

• Easier APIs for WordPress
• Libraries Should Use Liberal Licenses
• Media Matters: A Watch Group For Conservatives
• Paying Off Debt Revisited
• Why Writing Documentation Wasn’t a Waste of Time

Tags: PHP Games Series

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 at 9:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.