Written in easy-to-understand language, this book is a must-read if you'd like to create out-of-the-ordinary, yet simple games. Authors Alexandre Lobao and Ellen Hatton demonstrate the ease of producing multimedia games with Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming the games with Visual Basic .NET on the Everett version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. The authors emphasize simplicity, but still explore important concepts of Managed DirectX 9.0, such as Direct3D, DirectSound, DirectMusic (using the COM interface), DirectInput (including force-feedback joysticks), DirectShow, and DirectPlay. Additional chapters discuss game programming technologies: Speech API for generating character voices, GDI+ for simple games, and multithreading. A bonus chapter even shows you how to port a simple game to a Pocket PC. The book includes two chapters' worth of sample games. The first presents a game with simple features; the second extends that game and presents additional concepts. A library of game programming helper classes is also created, step by step, in both chapters.