Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus

Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus is a book by the game programmer and author Andre LaMothe, published by SAMS Publishing. It covers Win32 programming, along with the major components of DirectX including DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectInput (including Force Feedback), and DirectMusic. The reader is taught 2D graphics and rasterization techniques. The author provides information on game algorithms, multithreaded programming, artificial intelligence (including fuzzy logic, neural nets, and genetic algorithms), and physics modeling. The examples are written in C and occasionally C++.

The usage of DirectDraw 7 is an indication of the book being dated, but the book is GeneRally considered as a good introduction to game programming.

The first edition of the book covered all of the above and included a CD with resources to Direct3D articles, examples and code. The author did make a big apology at the end saying that he would have liked to cram the Direct3D into it, but felt that since enough ground was covered already, it would be left to another book.

The second edition of this book was released in June 15, 2002. It is followed-up by a sequel: Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus-Advanced 3D Graphics and Rasterization.