Chapter 1. Game Programming Overview

This chapter provides a brief history of the evolving roles of game programmers through the different eras of video game development. Once that bit of history is established, the chapter then covers three important concepts in programming any game: the game loop, management of time, and game objects.

Evolution of Video Game Programming

The first commercial video game, Computer Space, was released in 1971. Created by future Atari founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, the game was not powered by a traditional computer. The hardware had no processor or RAM; it simply was a state machine created with several transistors. All of the logic of Computer Space had to be implemented entirely in hardware.

But when ...

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