Reddit mentions of Game Programming: The L Line, The Express Line to Learning

That's an OK book, as you can see from the reviews, mostly because he never develops a real game. You might find this page for Game Programming: The L Line to be helpful too -- it has a series of PowerPoint slides that give a Pygame tutorial as well.

You might look at Game Programming, the L Line, The Express line to Learning

You can get it used fairly cheap. You wouldn't know from the title, but it only uses Python. It has 'Practice Exams' at the end of each chapter, usually with 2 questions that ask you to augment programs in the book.

THanks so much for the kind words.

I agree with you about gaming being a great way to introduce yourself to ideas.

Don't completely give up on Java. It's a really nice language once you get used to its 'strict aunt' attitude about things.

I've got a Python gaming book...
http://www.aharrisbooks.net/pythonGame/
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Programming-Line-Express-Learning/dp/0470068221

The video version of my class on Python game programming is available free here:
http://synapse.cs.iupui.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/Front.aspx?cid=6d8a3243-451c-460c-8c15-fff771bc51f5

My next project (after the HTML5 quick reference I'm finishing up right now) will be a book on game programming in JavaScript and HTML5.

These are the two books that I learned python from and I highly recommend them:

Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner

Game Programming: The L Line, The Express Line to Learning

Both of these books teach you to program your own computer games, starting with the basics and then progressing into tkinter and pygame.

I would highly recommend this book : http://www.amazon.com/Game-Programming-Line-Express-Learning/dp/0470068221

This book is what helped me get started with Pygame about 5 years ago. It's written for Python 2 not 3 so keep that in mind and it very helpful for someone who is just starting out.

While I eventually moved on to Unity because it had more of what I needed, starting in Python(my favorite language) helped me in understanding basic concepts of game design and programing. When you understand the basics jumping to C# or any other language is much easier.

Best of wishes and I hope this helped some! :)