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Reviewer: S. Nagaraj

Computer games have become extremely popular. As a result, new games are being introduced to the market almost daily. Some of these games are multi-player games, while others involve networking. Hence, it would be interesting to understand the algorithmic and networking problems associated with these games. Algorithmic and networking problems are the focus of this book. The authors discuss common difficulties in game programming by mixing algorithmic knowledge with problems related to modern computer games. The goal of the book is to provide deeper algorithmic insight into game programming, and to elaborate game-specific network considerations. The book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students pursuing computer game-related courses, postgraduate researchers, and game developers interested in new approaches as well as the theoretical background to games. The book includes 51 cookbook algorithms, and 178 instructive exercises. The algorithmic solutions are in pseudocode format, and can be transformed into the code of any desired programming language. All chapters of the book include exercises and a summary. The book is made up of two parts. The first part examines algorithmic problems by presenting how they can be practically solved. The authors focus on how to find a path in a game world, how to create a terrain in it, and how to make decisions in it. Chapter 1 is the introductory chapter, covering topics including the anatomy of computer games, synthetic players, multi-playing, games and storytelling, and other game considerations. This chapter also presents an outline of the book. Chapter 2 is on random numbers. In this chapter, the authors explain the linear congruential method, discrete finite distributions, random shuffling, and mechanisms for creating game worlds. The objective is to explain how to achieve the indeterminism required by computer games using deterministic algorithms. Chapter 3 discusses tournaments. Tournaments help to decide a ranking for a set of contestants. Rank adjustment tournaments, elimination tournaments, and scoring tournaments are studied. Chapter 4 examines game trees. Minimax, alpha-beta pruning, and games of chance are discussed in this chapter. The ideas in this chapter are strongly influenced by techniques from artificial intelligence. Chapter 5 is on path finding. The goal is to find a route in a potentially continuous game world. Discretization of the game world, finding the minimum path, and other topics are described. Chapter 6 is on decision making. Finite state machines, flocking, and influence maps are examined in this chapter. Chapter 7 is on modeling the uncertainties present in decision making. Statistical reasons, fuzzy sets, and fuzzy constraint satisfaction problems are analyzed. The second part acquaints the reader with problems related to networking in computer games. The focus is on how to hide the inherent communication delay, how to utilize the limited network resources, and how to cope with cheating. Chapter 8 discusses communication layers. The goal is to understand the technical restrictions behind networking. Physical and logical platforms and networked applications are studied here. Chapter 9 is on compensating for resource limitations. The task here is to learn how to deal with inherent communication delays, and how to divide network resources among multiple players. Aspects of compensation, protocol optimizations, dead reckoning, local perception filters, synchronized simulation, and area-of-interest filters are looked at in this chapter. In chapter 10, the last chapter of the book, the authors discuss ways to prevent cheating in computer games. The focus is on technical exploitations and rule violations. The goal of the chapter is to find ways to guarantee a fair playing field for all players. The book includes an appendix on pseudocode conventions. The appendix focuses on techniques for changing the flow of control, data structures, the format of algorithms, and mechanisms for conversion of the pseudocode (in the book) to existing programming languages. There are also bibliographies related to the technical literature, as well as to commercial computer games. In today's world, there is little doubt that artificial intelligence and pattern recognition play a major role in computer games. Unfortunately, the authors have not addressed these subjects to any conspicuous extent. Although the book includes examples from real-world computer games, the authors exclude topics such as graphics and human interaction, issues related to how a game is played, and game design issues. In some examples, the reference to real-world computer games seems superficial. Classical topics such as random numbers and tournaments discussed in the book have been well studied in the literature, and the reader should refer to other books for more details. The authors could have described game trees in more significant depth. Despite these shortcomings, I recommend this book for game developers, students, researchers, and specialists in game programming. Online Computing Reviews Service