JAPAN: Game-related books

Just some features of the local bookshelf at Junkudo- the Barnes and Noble of Japan. Game-related books.

The usual you'd find anywhere, coding any type of game in Objective C. All of the Game Programming Gem series. have been translated. Lots of modelling books, mostly devoted to MAYA. Only to be seen are about 3 books coding in Flash AS3 *wa wa wa waaaaaah* and the content none too impressive- how to make a Super Mario Clone etc. There was one 3D coding title that came with some Japanese 3D libraries on a CD.

As you can see the trend in Japan is more towards mobile gaming, there's a TON of books related to the IphoneSDK, for example, as well as coding with Android.

Another thing to note is that you can see some biographies of famous game designers over here, as they are given more acclaim in Japan, comparable with famous engineers in Germany.

Some links regarding the Iphone and Android in Japan.

Android Development Jobs in Japan

Is Japan’s Social Gaming Boom an Explosion or an Implosion?

Japan’s iPhone craze attracting worldwide developers

New

Hey,

First of all, if you're interested in my game updates, skip to the bottom of this post.

New Blog Additions

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So while it might seems pretty obvious from the blogs title, I do in fact live in Japan, although I'm a true blue Brit from Hastings. Living here and being a hardcore gamer is heaven, I sometimes feel as if every other Japanese person is some kind of gaming freak and in reflection of that Japan has some of the coolest gaming paraphernalia you can find on the planet. Gaming centers over here are big business, usually have about 6 floors full of games with expensive high-tech units you could only dream of having in the West. And many shops are devoted to selling quirky gamer stuff that I feel definitely someone living outside Japan might get excited over and have to break the bank to buy on e-bay.

Henceforth, with this in mind I've decided to mix in with this blog some regular concurrent info about the game scene in Japan. My first post is coming real soon, so watch this space.

Game stuff

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It's been awhile since my post, but the good news is that the reason behind this is because I've been extremely productive with work on my latest project, officially titled 'Chronicle' as of last week.

Some of you may have seen the demo of the Asteroids clone in my last post. The game has been revamped and now aspires to being a kind of retro tribute game that features 8 levels, some of which are resemblance to old arcade games, namely -Galaxians, Space Invaders, Gorf, Asteroids and Sinistar- but are fashioned to fit in the game's architecture.

Game features some nice particle effects (I think I've seriously gotten the hang of bitmap blitting these days) and I've even fiddled around with the CS5 3d transformation tools to bump up the sexiness of some of the graphics. You can collect power-ups that morph your ship into other type of ships with differing specialities- none of which I can mention at this point.

Might be just foolishness on my part but I'm a tad protective about some of the unique concepts in this one, hence the lack of an updated demo. Sorry. I will probably post it on FGL soon though, so members with a market level of 1 or over should be able to view it.