Remember Rat Race? Remember my LaTeX post? how about faster, stronger, better....after the unity course

This is not a game…yet. It’s a book.

I posted earlier about LaTeX, a mathematical/science/computer science document typsetting system. This serves as an example of what can be done with LaTeX—that is the complete source of the (greatly redacted) sample.

The .pdf file created by LaTeX is here: https://github.com/tdvance/RatRaceGameSample/blob/master/Book.pdf (sample is 13 megabytes)

At the rate I’m writing, I might be ready to submit the full book for publication (somewhere) in about a year: I’ve written 165 pages and I estimate 300-600 pages when it is finished, and I’ve been writing 30-60 pages a month. So…about a year.

The idea is a how-to manual for building a really polished Rat Race game, one much better than the one I put here:

source: https://github.com/tdvance/Maze-Chase
html5 web game: https://tdvance.itch.io/rat-race

In addition to building Rat Race specifically, it is a template for building games, period. I am writing it sort-of like a textbook, with exercises (most with solutions or partial solutions shortly after) and some challenge problems for going beyond the scope of the book.

Start of the source for the faster-stronger-better version of the game: https://github.com/Todd-D-Vance/Rat-Race

but despite being faster, stronger, and better, I don’t expect it to cost six million dollars!

(if no paper-book publisher wants to publish the book, I’ll look into one of those donation-ware e-book sites–it will eventually get out there, one way or another!)

Update on Book in Progress: video

(dollar signs) Plug! (dollar signs)

From the YouTube description:

No sound (I might edit later and add an audio track) so useth thy imaginationeth!

I am writing a book. I estimated 600 pages. I have reached 294 pages, and a good place to pause, so I’m calling it “halfway done”!

The book is on building and publishing a classic arcade video game using modern tools. This video shows the state of the game up to this point (it is still buggy, and missing lots of features, such as sound). At the end of the game demo are some shots of pages of the book in progress. Feel free to pause the video and read the few pages I showed, just as a taste of what has been written and what is to come (some chapters and sections in the table of contents are still empty).

I will eventually sell the book. If a major publisher takes it, great! If not…I will still find a way to get it out there. I have published articles in journals, and I have written lots more unpublished material (including books, like technical manuals) still in safes at various companies and govt. agencies around the world. This is my first attempt at a published book.

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