Talk:List of books

Programming Category

3D Game Alchemy (and by extension, I would suppose Tricks of the Doom Programming Gurus as well, but I have the Alchemy edition) isn't actually about programming a Doom clone engine; it's an editing guide in similar vein to the one from Hank Leukart. Out of what I have on my bookshelf, André LaMothe's "Black Art of 3D Game Programming" could be a better fit to what the section header describes. -- ETTiNGRiNDER (talk) 07:32, 14 November 2016 (CST)

Ah OK. I had based my assumption on the fact that the similarly named "Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus" is exactly what it sounds like. It's hard to find info on some of these books w/o owning them. Any improvement in accuracy you can make is welcome. --Quasar (talk) 08:58, 14 November 2016 (CST)

I own this one, I concur, it's an editing book not programming. Moved accordingly. I'm surprised that TOTGPG is a programming book, Ive never read it but I always thought 3DGA was a 2nd edition of it.

I wonder if Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book belongs on this page somewhere. -- Shambler (talk) 10:27, 14 November 2016 (CST)

Final Doom unauthorized guide's title

I feel like the current wording of the new note stating that "[t]he book itself uses the former title" may be a little misleading. The book (at least in my copy, I don't think it was published in multiple editions?) uses both titles. On the front cover and spine it does indeed say "Final Doom Game Secrets Unauthorized" while the inside title page uses the "Final Doom Unauthorized Secrets" version, so it seems unsurprising that sites would index it under the title that appears on the cover. -- ETTiNGRiNDER (talk) 11:46, 15 October 2018 (CDT)

Ah OK, I see. Feel free to change it up if you can think of a better way to put it. --Quasar (talk) 16:42, 15 October 2018 (CDT)

3d game alchemy and Level Master II, clarification on digital books

in this 2016 edit, User:Quasar wrote

An electronic copy [ of 3d game alchemy ] is included with the Level Master II

List_of_commercial_compilations says (User:ETTiNGRiNDER, 2014):

This is a release of the 3D Game Alchemy book and disc in packaging resembling a game box. Often also referred to as Instant Doom Levels.

(see also Talk:List_of_commercial_compilations#Level_Master_II)

I think this is the compilation in question: https://archive.org/details/cdrom-doom-level-master-2

That ISO contains two book PDFs, DOOM.PDF (12 Aug '96) and DOOMGURU.PDF (13 Aug '96), both 120.1 MiB and both appearing to be Tricks of the Doom Gurus. I don't own that book, but it's substantially similar to 3D Game Alchemy, which I do. Both are level/resource editing guides, not programming books (not to be confused with Tricks of the Game-Programming Gurus)

I think some clean-up is needed: the boxed copy of "Level Master II" may have included a physical copy of 3D Game Alchemy, which itself contained a CD-ROM (I uploaded my copy to archive.org.) The 3D Game Alchemy CD-ROM contains some extra chapters (on ACS) that are not in the printed book, but does not include a digital copy of the book. "Level Master II" CD-ROM does include digital copies of Tricks of the Doom Gurus, but not 3D Game Alchemy. I don't think a digital copy of 3D Game Alchemy is available anywhere but I'd love to be proved wrong. (I have the paper copy, to scan one day if I have to.) Jdowland (talk) 09:18, 17 April 2024 (CDT)

I've written a stub 3D Game Alchemy article (inc. link to scanned book that I just discovered), cross-linked it and made an adjustment to the note referenced above to try and clear up physical copy versus digital copy. Jdowland (talk) 07:41, 22 April 2024 (CDT)