★★★★★ 3
Godot, a Beautiful Engine that is Great for any Budding Developer
Format: Kindle
My background: I am a professional VBA programmer that has used Unity3D as a hobby engine off and on for years. Until Godot, I had zero experience with Python. GDScript (Python-based) is easy enough to pick up once you understand its syntax IF you know other languages.
The Review:
The Kindle version is great. I have been following along quite easily. So far, I've kept up with what the book has told me to do and have learned quite a lot about about game development in general.
Here's the reason for the three star review: I cannot find where to download the assets they talk about in Hour 5. If it came on a disc for the physical copies, that's wonderful! Great for them. That does nothing for the Kindle version. I couldn't find anywhere in the book that said "got to this website to download the files for the projects you'll be doing in this book. So, I came here, where I bought the book from, looking for a FAQ or something that may lead me to where I can download the assets manually. I googled what I thought would find the files with nothing that I could do about it.
So, now I am stuck if I want to continue the book and use the assets they're using because there's nowhere clearly spelled out where to get the assets they've cited, page 73, "First, locate the “sprites” folder, which contains all the needed Sprites for this hour, in the accompanying “Godot-Hour 5” folder and copy it into your Godot project folder using your OS’s file explorer".
Good luck in your game development journeys!
Update 1: Got in touch with the publisher, they told me to get in touch with Amazon after trying to get the assets through their website, which proved to be unsuccessful.
Update 2: Spoke with Amazon, they said that they are merely the store, that they can only provide what is given to them to provide. Please contact the publisher.
Update 3: Contacted the publisher again about the issue citing what Amazon said. The publisher said they couldn't do anything about it that it is on "Kindle" to rectify.
Update 4: Ultimately, I returned the book. I was enjoying the book very much until this issue happened. I am going to rate this book a 1-star because of the fiasco that has to do with the assets that they mentioned in the "Hour 5" chapter that I never got access to. I hope that this helps anyone make a decision as to whether or not to purchase for themselves.
Update 5: I downgraded my review from 3-star to 1 star.
Update 6: I continued to press this situation with the publisher of the book. Come to find out, Pearson (cited as the publisher) is not the publisher, per-say but InformIT is. I was incorrect about something that I said earlier about there not being anything in the book for the assets download. I found it after digging some more. There is a page that states that you should go to informit.com/register and use a specific ISBN (the book lists it) to register the book for additional content, updates and what-not. I have done so. So, I dug around on the InformIT website looking for the content, hoping that in this whole debacle, I am just dumb. After a lengthy conversation with an associate from InformIT, the files are, infact, not available. The associate has forwarded my problem higher-up and I should expect an answer in 24-48 hours. I will update this review again once I get an answer. Again, I do not blame Amazon. I blame the publisher(s), Pearson and InformIT for this. Also, let it be known that I have purchased the physical copy of the book despite the problems I am having in hopes that I will still get good information from the book overall.
Update 7: It's been a while. I thought that my last update was posted. Though, it seems that it was not.
Here's the update: After a few back-and-forth with the publisher that ultimately was responsible for the book, they gave me a link to the assets. Since I cannot paste the link, I will say that you can google the assets yourself. If you're interested in them, please google "github godot 24 hours". My first query response was the exact link needed. I sincerely hope that everything that I've stated here helps.
I am going to start following along in the book again since I have the assets needed now. I am upgrading my review back to a three-star until I can fully assess the book. I think that it is asinine that I had to jump through the hoops that I did jump through to get the assets that were needed in order to follow along exactly. I don’t have time to be an asset artist on top of a programmer. I also don’t have too much money to buy assets. Thus, having the assets that were necessary to complete the projects as written would have been nice.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2019
