Author: Mrs Odie

Want to design your own video games? Let expert Scott Rogers show you how!

If you want to design and build cutting-edge video games but aren’t sure where to start, then the THIRD EDITION of the acclaimed Level Up! is for you! Written by leading video game expert Scott Rogers, who has designed for the hits Pac-Man World, God of War, Maximo and SpongeBob SquarePants, this updated edition provides clear and well-thought-out examples that forgo theoretical gobbledygook with charmingly illustrated concepts and solutions based on years of professional experience.

Level Up! 3rd Edition has been NEWLY EXPANDED to teach you how to develop marketable ideas, learn what perils and pitfalls await during a game’s pre-production, production and post-production stages, and provide even more creative ideas to serve as fuel for your own projects including:

• Developing your game design from the spark of inspiration all the way to production
• Learning how to design the most exciting levels, the most precise controls, and the fiercest foes that will keep your players challenged
• Creating games for console, mobile, and VR/AR/MR―including detailed rules for game play design and controls
• Monetizing your game from the design up
• Play test your game to get the best feedback from your players

What is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Why is it happening? Is peace possible? When kids ask questions like these, are grownups prepared to answer? This book was created to provide context for this conflict, open the door to conversation, and lay a path for understanding, peace, and compassion for our shared future.

Core themes in this book: Acceptance, Courage, Empathy, History

This fact-filled book takes popular notions and ideas about football and examines where the myth came from, how or why it has become well known, and finally whether it really is true or false! It looks at statements like: ‘World War One was stopped for a game of football’ or ‘A player was murdered for scoring an own goal’. Each statement is evaluated and then awarded a Truth or Busted stamp at the end of each entry. The title also has fascinating features such as highest transfer fees around the world or cool David Beckham facts, as well as a mini quiz on football teams and their grounds!

Alright BOOM, Big Manny is here to show you how you can become a real-life scientist and create awesome experiments at home using ordinary ingredients.

We’ll learn some basic (and not-so basic) chemistry tings – from combustion to chromatography (chroma-what-now?).

We’ll meet the amazing 

 

elements that each have their own personalities – from fiery hydrogen to the main man oxygen.

And we’ll create explosive reactions – from fizzing mixtures to dish soap volcanoes!

Let’s start experimenting and find out why science is lit, innit.

Jack Skellington, the beloved Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, has grown tired of his home’s annual scaring routines and longs for something new.

So when he and his loyal dog, Zero, discover a series of doors in the Hinterlands leading to other holiday towns, he can’t help but explore – and quickly becomes enamoured with Christmas Town, a place filled with jolly laughs, merry elves, and plenty of presents. Jack shares all of his findings with the rest of Halloween Town, and together, they devise a plan to run Christmas themselves.

But not all tricks can be turned into holiday treats, and Jack’s dream to organise the best Christmas ever may just turn into a nightmare. Alongside friends like the rag doll Sally, can Jack find his true purpose as a holiday king?

Jack Skellington is the undisputed Pumpkin King of Halloween Town. But it wasn’t always that way… discover the story behind Jack’s title in this manga miniseries.

Years ago, Jack and Oogie Boogie were close friends. Both eager to prove themselves, they poured all their passion into their fantastical projects to earn their rightful place as the scariest duo in town. But there could only be one Pumpkin King! What could have happened to turn two best friends into such bitter rivals?

When Edgar the Pumpkin King declares his retirement, a contest to decide his successor takes place between friends-turned-rivals Jack and Oogie Boogie. Fans of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas will love seeing favourite characters such as Jack Skellington, Oogie Boogie, Sally and Lock, Shock, and Barrel in this original story set before the events of the film.

This perfectly creepy manga miniseries collects together issues 1-5 of Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Battle for Pumpkin King into one graphic novel!

Comic Strip Biology makes learning about the science behind animals, plants and the human body fun!

Each spread in this series features a short, funny comic strip that explains a process or aspect of science. Around the strip, diagrams and panels give further information on the topic. They are a fantastic way to engage children aged 8 plus with science.

The illustrator, Jess Bradey, is winner of the 2021 Blue Peter Award for Best Non-Fiction for A Day in the Life of a Poo, Gnu and You and also writes and draws for The Phoneix comic.

What makes a bridge wobble when it’s not meant to? Billions of dollars mysteriously vanish into thin air? A building rock when its resonant frequency matches a gym class leaping to Snap’s 1990 hit I’ve Got The Power? The answer is maths. Or, to be precise, what happens when maths goes wrong in the real world.

As Matt Parker shows us, our modern lives are built on maths: computer programmes, finance, engineering. And most of the time this maths works quietly behind the scenes, until … it doesn’t. Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near-misses and mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman empire and a hapless Olympic shooting team, Matt Parker shows us the bizarre ways maths trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world.

Mathematics doesn’t have good ‘people skills’, but we would all be better off, he argues, if we saw it as a practical ally. This book shows how, by making maths our friend, we can learn from its pitfalls. It also contains puzzles, challenges, geometric socks, jokes about binary code and three deliberate mistakes. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.

What would you do if you woke up one day to find that your best friend has become your worst enemy?

That’s exactly what happens to 11-year-old Ryan in this brand-new comedy adventure from bestselling author, comedian, and presenter Danny Wallace, perfect for readers age 8+ and fans of Stephen Mangan, Andy Griffiths, Jenny Pearson, Helen Rutter, David Walliams and David Baddiel.

Separated only by a garden fence, Ryan and Tom have been best friends since they were two years old. But while Ryan is looking forward to starting secondary school together, Tom doesn’t seem to want anything to do him with anymore. Suddenly, he’d rather hang out with mean Minnie and horrible Simon!

Ryan sets out to repair their friendship . . . but everything he tries backfires spectacularly. So Ryan decides that there’s only one thing for it – he must exact terrible revenge on his ex-best friend. Cue: Operation Evil Genius.

The brand new, read-in-one-sitting, packed-with-twists mystery from bestselling Lisa Thompson.

Todd and Laurie’s dad is either on top of the world, taking them on fun adventures, or down in the depths and sleeping all the time.

In the middle of the night, he bundles them into the car and drives to them to the Paradise Hotel. He paints a picture of a luxurious mansion surrounded by acres of land – a golf course, a swanky swimming pool, a grand ballroom, firework displays. The reality is a rundown dump – and the disappointment means Dad takes to his bed.

Todd and Laurie discover the unsolved mystery of a famous novelist vanishing from her room on the top floor of the hotel. Rumour has it that she hid a priceless manuscript somewhere in the building, and set some fiendish clues that would reveal its whereabouts. Can the kids crack the case and find the prize?