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Newcomers AppGameKit Corner / AGK Book Chapters (Free Download)

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Alistair
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Posted: 5th Sep 2020 11:04
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The first 8 chapters (over 300 pages) of Hands On AppGameKit Studio Volume 1 are available to download from the Digital Skills website (www.digital-skills.co.uk). If you are just starting out in programming in general or AppGameKit in particular, you may find the book helpful. It doesn't matter if you are using Studio or Classic, 95% of the book is relevant to both versions. You'll find plenty of programming activities to help you develop your programming skills (the solutions are there too) and you will be programming a complete game by the end of the 8th chapter.
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Loktofeit
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Posted: 6th Sep 2020 12:10
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!!! Very cool!
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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 6th Sep 2020 19:35 Edited at: 6th Sep 2020 19:40
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Thanks, Alistair. Very generous

a couple of things:

  • i own HOAGK (Classic) which shipped with downloadable content. do these free 8 chapters require any download beyond the (33.3MB) PDF? I see no reference to additional files but want to make sure since Classic eBooks had lots.

  • here's a link to an Unreleased Official AppGameKit Tutorial Guide. It looks Classic while TGC has been all about Studio for some time. Will this "official guide" be produced?


Thanks again.

add: looking at the tutorial guide page again:
Quote: "Please note that this guide does not cover the new animated 3D, 3D physics and other commands released in V2.0.15."

it seems it was scrapped long ago based on the versioning?

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Alistair
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Posted: 7th Sep 2020 07:55
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The downloadable resources for both volumes of the book can also be downloaded for free. Just use the links on the "Download" pages for both volumes.

"The Official AppGameKit Tutorial Guide" was just another name for my "Hands On ..." book. And the reason that I no longer offer the "Classic" version is that the "Studio" version of the book is really just the original "Classic" version with a few pages added to cover the extra features of "Studio" (OK - a few of the
screenshots are a bit different too!).

Also, for anyone who does buy the books directly from Digital Skills, all future updates will be free (though you'll have to email a request for them).
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Zaxxan
AGK Developer
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Posted: 1st Dec 2020 04:11
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Are there any plans to produce a hard copy of your books? Unfortunately PDF's don't make very good presents.
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Alistair
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Posted: 1st Dec 2020 08:30
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@Zaxxan I agree. I don't think too many Christmas gifts come in the form of PDF files (difficult to wrap)! Unfortunately, there are many problems with print copies: no colour (unless the book becomes very expensive), cost of printing small quantities (AGK is a bit of a niche market), postage costs (around 26GBP to USA) and since AGK
has relatively frequent updates, printed copies go out of date (and I'm left with unsold stock). Having said all that, I am considering selling the AppGameKit books via Amazon (even if they end up taking most of the money) so I suppose that would allow for print-on-demand options (though over 2000 pages - 2 volumes might be a hefty price even in black&white).
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Zaxxan
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Posted: 1st Dec 2020 15:27
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Hi Alistair, thank you for the reply. Yes I agree they would be hefty books and I also agree that they would go out of date quite quickly!

Do you ever do any offers if both books (pdf's) are bought together?



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Alistair
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2020 09:21
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@Zaxxan. I've never offered the books together for a single price. I have to be careful with special offers if I intend to offer the books on Amazon. Amazon don't allow books to be offered elsewhere at a lower price.
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Zaxxan
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Posted: 5th Dec 2020 12:11
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Ok, thanks for the reply.
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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 6th Dec 2020 06:10 Edited at: 6th Dec 2020 06:17
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Quote: "Unfortunately PDF's don't make very good presents."

i don't know if there are Gift options when purchasing and can't remember how the PDF books were made available to me when i bought them for Classic awhile back but i expect they were Links.

surely, we can find a way to make PDFs Good Presents, somehow?
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Alistair
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Posted: 31st Dec 2020 10:48
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Hands On AppGameKit Studio Volume 2 (which also covers AppGameKit Classic) has now been updated. If you bought a copy of the book directly from Digital Skills, you can claim a free upgrade (see our website for details - www.digital-skills.co.uk).
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chikega
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Posted: 28th Jan 2021 16:10
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Alistair,
For someone new to AppGameKit, your books are a godsend - not only are your books a great overview of AppGameKit, but also an excellent overview of basic programming concepts. Thank you for creating them!
Cheers,

Gary
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Alistair
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Posted: 29th Jan 2021 08:34
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Thanks Gary, I'm glad you have found them helpful. If I can help with anything in the books you can email me at alistair@digital-skills.co.uk but be sure to put AppGameKit in the email title (I get a lot of spam).
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Mykyl66
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Posted: 14th Mar 2021 21:04
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I notice you mention amazon. Do they allow selling of pdf versions?
cheers

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Alistair
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Posted: 15th Mar 2021 07:50
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Mykyl66 : The PDF files do have to be converted to an Amazon format but unlike standard ebooks the exact layout of the pages remain intact no matter how they are viewed. I intend to put them on Amazon after I have updated Volume 1(one of the many projects I'm working on at the moment).
Of course I only get 35% of the selling price from sales on Amazon so I'd much rather people bought the books from the Digital Skills website!
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Mykyl66
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Posted: 15th Mar 2021 12:22
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Wow. only 35%. That is just nuts. Even Apple let you keep 70%. Crazy.
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Zaxxan
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Posted: 21st Mar 2021 11:11 Edited at: 21st Mar 2021 15:26
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Alastair, have you considered reducing the price of your books? I think you would get increased sales if you reduced the price, £28 is too much for a pdf book in my opinion. If you reduced the price to £14 you would get 50% of what you currently charge, better than the 35% from Amazon and your customers would benefit from the price reduction instead of Amazon. I would buy the books today if they were £14 but I still would not be able to afford them when they are sold through Amazon. I would think a reduced price would see quite a large increase in sales so overall you would make more money than you do now. As the cost of an ebook is the same wether you sell 1 book or 1 million books the cost to you of producing more ebooks is only time (i think!). More sales would increase the amount of people discussing your books which would further increase sales. This sounds like a sound business decision to me!
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Alistair
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2021 07:24
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Zaxxan, you are right that a price reduction would almost certainly increase sales (and hopefully, income). And if AppGameKit had a huge market I would certainly reduce the price (that's why the C++ book is only 18GBP). But the truth is that AppGameKit, although my favourite package for creating the type of apps I'm interested in (educational games), is a tiny niche and I don't think there are enough people out there waiting to buy the books at a reduced price to sustain an increased income over the years. Of course, the only way to be sure is to reduce the price and find out! I think 14GBP is a bit low for books that are over 1000 pages though. Perhaps I'll try it out for a limited period some time in the future.
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Zaxxan
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2021 12:10
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Hi Alastair, thanks for considering a price reduction. I agree that AppGameKit is a niche market but I would also think it is a time limited market as well with maybe a newer version being released sometime in the future, so the phrase 'make hay while the sun shines' springs to mind!

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Mykyl66
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2021 13:18 Edited at: 23rd Mar 2021 13:32
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The price is one of the reasons I have personally had the books on radar rather than actually purchased for longer than I care to think about. Its the scotsman in me. lol.

If I was a regular at using App game kit I would have bought at the current price no problem.

I have never gotten past the first couple of chapters in the section that is given away for free as I have limited time and just want to get making something rather than reading about what variables etc are. (That however is perfect for my kids.) It seems that there is some sections on making certain types of game. (Something that irritates me about app game kit is there is no real simple lets make this type of game from scratch using text rather than videos. Well none that I have found.

At £14 or £15 for each of the books on app game kit I would buy them today as thats within what I class as impulse buy money. Any more and I have to think when I will actually use them. I never paid full price for appgamekit itself either.

However I understand the hard work involved in writing the books and also the limited market for them so thats fine and understandable.
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Zaxxan
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2021 16:20 Edited at: 23rd Mar 2021 16:25
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That's exactly my position. If they were £14 or £15 each I would buy both today. The other concern for me is that an e-book has no resale value.
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Alistair
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Posted: 8th Apr 2021 09:25
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Mykyl66 and Zaxxan: I've taken your advice and lowered the price of the books (at least for a limited time - we'll see how the sales go). I'm afraid the new price isn't quite as low as you'd like but the books are now priced at 18.60GBP each.
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Colonel_Klink
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Posted: 10th Apr 2021 03:34
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Hi Alistair. Do you have a time frame re how long you'll be keeping the books at the lower price. I'm looking at purchasing around the 20th. Cheers Bob
We are now fully operational - that is, we are in a constant flap instead of having isolated confused situations.
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Alistair
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Posted: 10th Apr 2021 07:24
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Hi Bob. To be honest, I'm willing to keep the books at a lower price as long as the monthly income they generate is higher than it was at the old price. So I will probably try it out for a couple of months and compare income with the same time last year. Not looking great so far, but a bit early to tell.
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subratabera
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Posted: 18th Apr 2021 18:21
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Greetings Alistair! Being very new to AppGameKit I was looking for a good resource to learn the software. Seems your books are what I was looking for. I went through the sample chapters and found them really very helpful. Therefore decided to purchase them. I sent a mail to "sales@digital-skills.co.uk" in this regard as "alistair@digital-skills.co.uk" doesn't seem to be working for me. Really looking forward to learn a lot from the books. Thank you!
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Alistair
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Posted: 18th Apr 2021 21:16
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Hi subratabera. Thanks for your order. I believe you have now downloaded the book, but don't forget to download the resources too - you'll need them to work through the exercises in the book. I hope you find the book useful - AppGameKit is a great tool for creating apps and
an easy way into "proper" programming if that is of interest.

For anyone else that is ordering, please remember as it says on the ordering page, we reply to your orders manually so it may be a few hours before we email you the details of how to download the book(s). A bit longer if we happen to be asleep when a purchase order arrives!
Also, very occasionally, our emails end up in people's spam folder so always look there if you don't seem to have had a reply from us.

I had to disable the alistair@ address for the moment since I was having problems with that address but myself or Virginia always reply to sales@ emails too.
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Colonel_Klink
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Posted: 20th Apr 2021 21:47
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Hi Alistair. Just purchased both books. Looking forward to a happy productive relationship with them. Thanks for the time you have taken to write them.
Cheers
Bob
We are now fully operational - that is, we are in a constant flap instead of having isolated confused situations.
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Alistair
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Posted: 21st Apr 2021 07:17
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Hi Bob,

Hope you find the books useful. If I can help you with the contents in any way, just email me. At the moment it's best to use the sales@Digital-Skills.co.uk address. Just remember to put "AGK" in the title - I get so much spam!
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