After two hundred years, Kirito is finally reunited with Selka, Ronie and Tiese, but the girls are shocked to see Eolyne, who bears a striking resemblance to their fallen comrade. Then, with no time to process their feelings, the three Integrity Knights are thrown into battle alongside Eolyne and the Integrity Pilots. The old defenders of the Underworld join the new as the next chapter of the Unital Ring arc commences!

On the eightieth floor of the Central Cathedral, Kirito, Asuna, and Alice reunite with the petrified visage of Selka...and discover two more statuesque figures in need of assistance! Before Kirito can figure out a cure, though, he’s pulled away to Planet Admina to investigate an encroaching threat to the Underworld. Meanwhile, in Unital Ring, Sinon, Silica, and company are giving their all in the fight against the field bosses, but the conflict intensifies in a way almost no one could have predicted...

Build real-time strategy (RTS) games using Unity with practical techniques, best coding practices, and popular design patterns in this part-color guide Key Features Learn how to implement game architecture and gameplay features Explore unit actions, resource management, physics simulations, and audiovisual enhancements to boost player engagement Discover RTS mechanics such as implementing melee/ranged battles, unit spawning, dynamic maps, pathfinding, and more Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionBuilding a successful real-time strategy game is challenging, because of both the complex mechanics and the need to strike a balance between different elements, ensuring that players enjoy creating and executing strategies against the game's AI. Creating an RTS Game in Unity 2023 will teach you how to install and set up the Unity game engine, create a new 3D project, and build a level editor to make it easier to modify and add maps to a game. The RTS game will start to take shape while you learn to implement different core systems such as melee and ranged battles, unit spawners, camera controls, dynamic mapping generation, basic enemy AI, and the pathfinder algorithm. You'll also get to grips with implementing command units to perform actions, crafting and producing resources, basic physics and collision detection, and building an RTS game from scratch using C# and the latest features of the Unity game engine. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to make professional and high-quality end-to-end RTS games using the best practices and techniques from the gaming industry.What you will learn Incorporate the most used design patterns, algorithms, and techniques into your game Employ the best coding practices used in the games industry Explore the basics of AI and physics to create high-quality games Build dynamic and configurable maps to enhance the player experience Solve complex problems using the industry standards for Unity and C# Create the mechanics present in classic RTS games using a modern approach Gain a deep understanding of how to create professional games using Unity Who this book is for If you are a beginner game developer who wants to learn the skills to develop a professional RTS game, a programmer looking at career options in the industry who needs to develop a portfolio, or even an indie game developer seeking inspiration for your own games, this book is for you. Professional game developers, programmers with experience in C#, as well as game designers and artists looking for a practical guide to bring their game ideas to life will also find plenty of useful information in this book.

Wolff-Jadawin, demigod in Earthman's guise, and Lord of the Planet of Many Levels, opened his eyes to see the symbol of the Master Lord, Urizen, floating below the ceiling. The summons of the Cruellest of the Universe-makers was direct and urgent. Jadawin's beautiful wife had been abducted and held captive by the satanic Urizen In this uniquely amazing adventure, contrived by Urizen, Jadawin was required to enter the many-levelled universe that had been purposely constructed for his torment and possible destruction. Only through crossing the Gates of Creation could Jadawin redeem his bride, as he ventured through world after brutal world in an attempt to outfox the Master Lord's diabolically booby-trapped planets.

The Macintosh challenged games to be more than child’s play and quick reflexes. It made human–computer interaction friendly, inviting, and intuitive. Mac gaming led to much that is now taken for granted by PC gamers and spawned some of the biggest franchises in video game history. It allowed anyone to create games and playful software with ease, and gave indie developers a home for their products. It welcomed strange ideas and encouraged experimentation. It fostered passionate and creative communities who inspired and challenged developers to do better and to follow the Mac mantra ‘think different’. Drawing on archive material and interviews with key figures from the era – and featuring new material from Craig Fryar, Apple’s first Mac games evangelist and the co-creator of hit game Spectre – The Secret History of Mac Gaming is the story of those communities and the game developers who survived and thrived in an ecosystem that was serially ignored by the outside world. It’s a book about people who followed their hearts first and market trends second, showing how clever, quirky, and downright wonderful video games could be.

“Personable characters and superb storytelling make this an excellent choice. . . . Essential for Pern fans of all ages.”—Library Journal (starred review) The son of a miner, Kindan has no expectations for any other life. He loves his lessons with the camp’s harper, but music isn’t part of a miner’s future. He also enjoys helping out with the camp’s watch-wher— a creature distantly related to dragons and uniquely suited to work in dark, cold spaces—but even that important job can’t promise a future above the ground. Then disaster strikes. In one terrible instant, Kindan loses his family and the camp loses its watch-wher. It will take a new friendship and a new responsibility to teach Kindan that even a seemingly impossible dream is never out of reach . . . and that light can be found in the deepest darkness. “A guaranteed pleaser [in] one of SF’s most splendid and longest-lived sagas.”—Booklist “Another delightful entry in the Pern series.”—Publishers Weekly

How will climate change affect our future world? Will forests turn to deserts? Will whole cities sink beneath the waves? Will we swim to school, and take speedboats to work? Will coal, oil, and cow farts destroy the planet?! Err...no. Probably not. But the world will change, and our future lives will change along with it. In this amazing book, Glenn Murphy, author of Why is Snot Green?, takes you on a time-travelling trip to the year 2050, to answer all your questions about the future of planet Earth. Join future-school student Jake as he explores a world of floating trains and liquid traffic . . . of underwater windmills and volcanic electricity . . . of vertical farms, rooftop cycle-tubes, solar-powered smart-houses and grass-powered buses! Packed with incredible information about the future of food, water, transport, energy and the environment, this book has all the good stuff and none of the boring bits! Discover more funny science with Disgusting Science: A Revolting Look at What Makes Things Gross.

The first three adventures set in the amazing realm created by the Hugo Award–winning author of Riverworld and “an excellent science fiction writer” (Isaac Asimov). His past a mystery and his present unbearably mundane, Robert Wolff is simply trying to buy a new house in Arizona when he stumbles upon a secret doorway through space and time and enters the World of Tiers. Made up of ascending levels of jungles, plains, medieval cities, and, at the top, a Garden of Eden, and populated by fantastical creatures, from nymphs and centaurs to merpeople and strange amalgams nonexistent on Earth, it’s beyond anything Wolff could have imagined in his previous humdrum existence. And when his youth is restored in the bargain, it seems he’s truly found paradise. But there are dark forces in this new world, and Wolff is plunged into an epic quest up through the tiers, accompanied by Paul Janus Finnegan, another earthling, now known as Kickaha. Wolff’s journey to find Jadawin, the Lord of this world, will lead to answers about his own identity—and determine his fate. Wolff and Kickaha will face off against feuding Lords—who hold the power to control private worlds of their own design—and the depraved Bellers. Devices originally created in the biolabs of the Lords, the Bellers are now conscious entities waging war on the Lords and their “pocket universes.” As they infiltrate the bodies of creatures throughout the World of Tiers and hunt down the Earth-born, the survival of all the worlds hinges upon the battle between the strangers from Earth and enemies disguised as their allies. This omnibus contains the author’s preferred text, reprinted from the limited edition volumes published by Phantasia Press.

Ludwig Bonhoeffer has been looking forward to this opportunity for all of his life. Ever since he attended a lecture by one Doctor Berwick, he's dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon and assisting Berwick on his project: CORD. A computer system designed to perfectly interface with the human mind and help to wake comatose victims. But when an accident leaves Ludwig at the mercy of CORD, he finds that not all is as it seems. Inside CORD is a labyrinth of imprisoned minds and haunted people. Only one has managed to retain her sanity - Mara. The rest have given free reign to their darkest tendencies, led chiefly by Lucy - a psychopath who believes himself the incarnation of Satan. With Lucy out for his blood, can Ludwig unravel the mysteries of CORD and wake the sleepers up?

In the enchanting novel Prospero’s Children, Jan Siegel introduced an extraordinary heroine and the lushly evocative world of wonders and terrors that quickly enveloped her normal adolescent life. Now Siegel summons us back to the magic with the continuing story of Fern Capel—and the remarkable power of her extraordinary Gift . . . After surviving an amazing, terrifying summer twelve years ago, Fern makes a fateful decision: to deny the mystical powers that pulse through her family's past. Yearning for a simple, quiet life, she decides to marry a man twenty years her senior, a man who insists they wed at the Capels’ summer house in Yarrowdale, a place swelling with mood, marvel, and magic. For when Fern returns there with her best friend, Gaynor, ancient, sinister forces reawaken. Yet Fern has had enough: Enough of running from her fate, enough of hiding from her Gift. As she turns to face her destiny, the real world falls away, and Fern is once again swept into another land, removed from Time, void of comfort. It will take all her skill and daring to fight her way back to the present and save the people she loves from the ever-growing danger that threatens to destroy them. And to her utmost surprise, the key to survival is a dragon with the capacity to rule the world . . . but who will relinquish it all to one man. Jan Siegel has created an intense, fascinating world. To surrender yourself under her captivating spell is to remember how remarkably powerful a literary voyage can be.