About the Reviewers

Marcieb Balisacan is a game programmer, designer, and producer working in the Philippines. Being from a computer science and multimedia background, he has released several games for mobile devices and social networks on the Web since 2006. His passion for game development is equaled only by his passion for music and storytelling, all of which he uses to share his love for the art of creation.

I would like to acknowledge my newborn daughter, Nikita Lyric, who during the time of this review, kept me awake and inspired me to move ahead.

Michelle M. Fernandez is a mobile game developer for iOS/Android platforms, and co-founder of MobiDojo (http://www.mobidojo.com), which is based out of San Diego, California. MobiDojo has released apps in the marketplace for iOS, Android, Nook, and Kindle. Michelle has had numerous years working in the game industry, in the development and e-commerce environment. She is a mentor for aspiring artists and programmers trying to break into the industry. She also extends her expertise as a panelist at the University of California, San Diego Extension—DAC and The Art Institute of California, San Diego—by participating in sessions relating to game production, design, and marketing.

Michelle is the author of Corona SDK Mobile Game Development: Beginner's Guide, which was published by Packt Publishing. She has also written an article called How to Create a Mini-Game in Corona SDK for Game Coder Magazine. You can also view her personal website at http://www.michellefernandez.com.

Dr Christos Gatzidis is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Technology at Bournemouth University, UK at the School of Design, Engineering, and Computing. He has a PhD from City University London, UK and an MSc in Computer Animation from Teesside University, UK; he has also previously published work in a number of academically edited books, conferences, and journals. He is also the framework leader for the Creative Technology collection of degrees at Bournemouth University (which includes the BSc in Games Technology and the MSc in Computer Games Technology courses). Christos teaches a variety of units on these courses and uses game engines (such as Epic's Unreal Development Kit) across all years of the undergraduate course, to cover topics ranging from basic-level design fundamentals to more advanced scripting.

I would like to thank the authors of this book and also the great people at Packt for producing this excellent guide in one of the most engaging game development tools around today.

Sascha Hoba is an Engine Programmer for Crytek's award-winning CryENGINE. He is responsible for implementing new features, improving existing ones, and keeping the engine up-to-date with improvements made across all Crytek teams to increase the overall quality of the engine. He also gives direct support to CryENGINE licensees around the world, guiding them on how to use CryENGINE from a programmer's perspective and trying to find possible solutions for special requests made by licensees.

Sascha was recruited by Crytek back in 2010 after studying IT—Information Technology—at university. He was recruited due to his experience in working with all the revisions of CryENGINE since CryENGINE 1, back in 2004. He gained his experience as an active member of the FarCry and Crysis modding communities, where he always tried to push the engine to its limits and solve individual problems on how to implement certain features with the available CryENGINE SDK.

I would like to thank Sean Tracy and Paul Reindell for giving me the opportunity to review this book, which has been quite an interesting experience.

Robertson Holt is a polymath autodidact with a formal education. He is the founder of http://www.headshrinkerstudio.com/ and http://www.anatomicrecords.com/. When Robertson is not engaged with these activities, he's goofing off with his two little pugs, living his fun-loving life in downtown Toronto.

I would like to thank Bob Edward Wilson and Yog Sothoth.

Lee Chiu Yi Joanna is an experienced game developer. She started her game development career in game programming. She has programmed for an action game, KengoZero on the Xbox360, and for a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG), Otherland, on the PC. She is now also a game designer and has a collection of game designs/writings. Her interest in the mobile/web has led her to develop apps and games for these popular platforms as well. Do keep a look out for her apps/games when they are launched! She is also currently translating and reviewing another book about another interesting topic, Unified Communications. Just a note, she is not just a tech mouse; she also loves food, traveling, taking photos, and spending time with family and friends.

I would like to thank my family and friends for letting me take time away from them to review this book.

Morgan Kita is an AI Engineer working at Crytek in Frankfurt, Germany. He has a background in Computer Science and Genetics. He started his career in the biotech industry and later moved over to the games industry. He has experience in various aspects of the software industry, from databases and tools development, to multiple aspects of games development, such as artificial intelligence and multiplayer networking.

I would like to thank my mother and my brother for encouraging me to follow my passion.