Sams Teach Yourself Game Programming in 24 Hours

This hour tackled one of the most important topics of game development by introducing you to bitmap images, as well as how they are loaded and displayed in a Windows program. You first analyzed the inner structure of a bitmap, which was necessary in order to gain an understanding of what it takes to write code that can load a bitmap from a file or resource. You then used this knowledge to assemble a bitmap class that handles the messy details of creating bitmaps based on files, resources, or solid colors. The hour concluded by demonstrating how to use the bitmap class in a practical example program.

This hour concludes the first part of the book, which laid the groundwork for game programming in Windows. The next part of the book addresses the all-important topic of interacting with game players. You find out how to receive and process user input from a keyboard, mouse, and joystick, as well as creating your first complete game.