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Rating: 
Summary: Something good for Kids
Review: I bought this book for my ten-year-old son who is self-motivated in learning how to program C#. It has been hard to find a book tailored to such a young audience and this book fits the bill. It is very simple to follow and the game examples keep my son interested. At the end of each chapter are imaginitive challenges to help stretch a young exploring mind.
The only things I would add if I could would be some hints on the challenges to help keep a young reader from getting stuck, and some general tips on techniques for entering code.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book for beginning game programmers
Review: I have over 10 years experience in IT, but I am not familiar with Object Oriented Programming. So I took a brand new C# course offered at a local community college and they used this book as the text for the class. They will not use it again. All 12 students in the class concur with the decision of the IT department, but wonder why the book was chosen in the first place. The book is not structured, sample programs are broken up into pieces and displayed on different pages and it is not clear at all as to what is happening. Most of the time that you spend reading the material you waste on trying to figure out how numerous silly game programs work, rather than on how to construct code properly.
Rating: 
Summary: I strongly do not recommend this book for a beginner
Review: I have over 10 years experience in IT, but I am not familiar with Object Oriented Programming. So I took a brand new C# course offered at a local community college and they used this book as the text for the class. They will not use it again. All 12 students in the class concur with the decision of the IT department, but wonder why the book was chosen in the first place. The book is not structured, sample programs are broken up into pieces and displayed on different pages and it is not clear at all as to what is happening. Most of the time that you spend reading the material you waste on trying to figure out how numerous silly game programs work, rather than on how to construct code properly.
Rating:
Summary: Good book from zero-time
Review: I used this book as my very first programming book. It was the third or fourth book I tried from a group all supposedly for absolute beginniers. This is by far the best if you are a complete beginner. Some concepts aren't explained as well as others, and there are a few inconsistencies between the source code in the book and on the CD. However, the book teaches you to begin to think like a programmer -- so you should have the tools to work through the errors and difficulties in the book by the time you get to them. A great learn-by-doing book for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: Good book from zero-time
Review: I used this book as my very first programming book. It was the third or fourth book I tried from a group all supposedly for absolute beginniers. This is by far the best if you are a complete beginner. Some concepts aren't explained as well as others, and there are a few inconsistencies between the source code in the book and on the CD. However, the book teaches you to begin to think like a programmer -- so you should have the tools to work through the errors and difficulties in the book by the time you get to them. A great learn-by-doing book for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I needed
Review: My background is in graphics and traditional HTML/CSS web development rather than programming. Over the past few years I was able to learn ASP/VBScript programming on my own, but when my company made the transition to .NET programming, I quickly found that OOP was totally outside my experience and very confusing.
For the past few months I've been searching for a text that would explain not just the concepts of C# and object-oriented programming, but also the details of how it is implemented in the Visual Studio IDE in which I'm now working. I've tried numerous other "beginners" books on C# and OOP, but all of them assumed a level of programming knowledge that was beyond me or were so conceptual that I had no idea how to actually DO anything with the concepts.
This book was a godsend! I finally understand how a project is structured and what the various sections of the code-behind mean. I've also learned a wealth of practical details about useful tools in Visual Studio. Now I'm ready to tackle more complex texts and continue my self-directed training, but I could never have reached this point without this book.
Rating:
Summary: OutStanding Book for Beginners to Intermediate Programmers
Review: There is absolutely no reason why this book shouldn't be used for teaching a course. Especially for beginners. I've been a strict C programmer for 5 years and dabbled a little in C++ for a year and found this book to be an excellent choice for beginners to intermediate programmers. Before this book, I was totally against programming in OOP and stayed away from it as much as possible. This was due to my bad past experience with C++ OOP. But with this book, I finnally understood the benefits of OOP. The book teaches you how to program in the C# language by making simple games while progressing to more advanced ones. It starts you from the beginning of starting a project until the end. This is how learning to program should be...not dull and boring, but fun and interesting. I think more learning books should be this way. Certain areas may seem brainless for more experienced programmers, but this book is perfect for beginners or others converting from other languages. Each chapter is structured wonderfully, starting from the simple basics of C# and exploring the functionality of it. It will start with simple console programming, then progessing to classes and OOP programming and moving on into building forms all based on the theme of game design. It even goes on to letting you do graphic animations, XML, and ADO.NET. Keep in mind that this is NOT A REFERENCE FILLED BOOK and it will only give you the basics of the C# language - basically to get your feet wet enough to understand the language. Also, as of this writing, there are not too many C# game programming books out there. However, if you're looking for a C# game programming book, this book is also fair enough to get you started on simple games.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome for Learning OOP Concepts, C#, and .Net
Review: This book is awesome for beginnners or for anyone who can't seem to understand the use for Object Oriented Programming. I struggled through trying to understand the use of OOP in the past, but after using this book I finally get how much easier it is to fix problems when it's programmed using OOP concepts. It's great that he uses games to teach you as learning to program software has been a taboo subject for me and my employer has always wanted me to broaden my programming skills into that area. I've helped program and maintain the company E-Com website and internal system for 2-3 years using ASP and VBScript. So from the knowledge I gained from this book I'll be able to start learning ASP.Net using C# for the website, and also will be able to move onto more advanced books to create and maintain the software catalog.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for beginning game programmers
Review: This book uses small games to teach C# programming, and it does a wonderful job. I had a little experience with C++ programming when I first read this, so I wasn't an "absolute" beginner, but the book quickly got me up to speed in C#. I really enjoyed the book and it got me to a place where I could pick up a more complex book and understand it. I recommend "Teach yourself .NET Forms in 21 days" by Chris Payne and "C# and the .NET platform" by Andrew Troelson as follow-up books.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for beginning game programmers
Review: This book uses small games to teach C# programming, and it does a wonderful job. I had a little experience with C++ programming when I first read this, so I wasn't an "absolute" beginner, but the book quickly got me up to speed in C#. I really enjoyed the book and it got me to a place where I could pick up a more complex book and understand it. I recommend "Teach yourself .NET Forms in 21 days" by Chris Payne and "C# and the .NET platform" by Andrew Troelson as follow-up books.
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