Contrary to most programming books, Egges, Fokker and Overmars do not organize the presentation according to programming language constructs, but instead use the structure and elements of computer games as a framework. For instance, there are chapters on dealing with player input, game objects, game worlds, game states, levels, animation, physics, and intelligence. The reader will be guided through the development of four games showing the various aspects of game development. Starting with a simple shooting game, the authors move on to puzzle games consisting of multiple levels, and conclude the book by developing a full-fledged platform game with animation, game physics, and intelligent enemies. They show a number of commonly used techniques in games, such as drawing layers of sprites, rotating, scaling and animating sprites, showing a heads-up display, dealing with physics, handling interaction between game objects, and creating pleasing visual effects such as snow or glitter. At the same time, they provide a thorough introduction to C# and object-oriented programming, introducing step by step important aspects of programming in general, including many programming constructs and idioms, syntax diagrams, collections, and exception handling.