Just about every program on the CD are demos. Paint Shop Pro will only work for 30 days, and I don''t think the Truespace demo will even let you save. However, I think you can download older full versions of Truespace for free now. PSP as I said is a demo, and you should buy the full version if you want to use it. The one on the CD is an older version, and you can get PSP 7 for about $50. Either way, you need to buy some sort of graphics editor, or otherwise you''ll have to use MS Paint and everyone will laugh at your 4-bit graphics.

But, the CD does have some additional stuff that is very useful. It includes free artwork (by LaMothe himself), along with royalty-free sounds and music. All the source code for the demos are on the CD as well. And, there is also tons of bonus articles by other people on the CD that aren''t included in the book (for instance, there is an article about Neural Nets on the CD, but you won''t learn too much about them in the book). Also, there is a bonus chapter by LaMothe on the CD about text-based games (which also includes a sample game called Shadowland).