International Game Developers Association

Full name: Introduction to Game Development (2006)

Games Education
Course

Contents 1 Teachers 1.1 Instructors 1.2 Guest speakers 2 Course Background Information 2.1 Location 2.2 Classification 2.3 Student background needed 2.4 Course prerequisites 2.5 Time periods 3 Course Structure 3.1 Course description 3.2 Course learning objectives 3.3 Weekly topics 4 Course Materials & Facilities Used 4.1 Books 4.2 Other materials 4.3 Software (engines, tools) 4.4 Syllabus 4.5 Slides 4.6 Assessment materials 4.7 Digital media used in class 4.8 Case studies 4.9 Tutorial files 4.10 Other materials 5 Analysis of learning methods 5.1 What worked 5.2 What didn't work

Teachers

Instructors

• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Maic Masuch
• Dipl.-Ing. Lennart Nacke

Guest speakers

• Jochen Hamma (Spellbound and IGDA)
• Ralf Adam (Tiger Team Producer)
• Wolfgang Walk (Ascaron)
• Olaf Wolters (BIU)
• Dr. Stefan Blanck (Chromatrix)
• Christopher Kassulke (Handy Games)

Course Background Information

This course was designed to be a hands-on, team-based, game development centric production training. The lecture taught conceptional foundations of game development and the participants had to develop their own game prototypes in practical exercise and tutoring sessions (in the Smalltalk Environment Squeak). All of them needed to learn a new programming language (Smalltalk/Squeak). Students had to work on the project in teams, where they implemented a game idea. Students were assigned to interdisciplinary teams of developers, where they had to present visible progress for each given milestone.

Location

University of Magdeburg, Germany

Classification

See: Areas for classifying for your course.

Primary classification: Game Programming
Secondary classification: Game Production

Student background needed

Only graduate (Masters level - not PhD level) students from the Department of Simulation and Graphics and the Department of Computer Science of the University of Magdeburg.
Quota of 20 students.

Course prerequisites

(describe the course's prerequisites in terms of skills that students need to know)
Students had to have programming background and enroll for this course with a personal data sheet (resume in table form) of maximum two pages (their prior knowledge in the graphics or programming field was of special interest to us), an explanatory statement why we should choose them for the course (their self-rating of their skills in the areas of programming, art, audio, interface and level design, and project management) and a selection of two favorite areas like Programming, Graphics, Audio, Project Management, Design and which game you have played last. This had to be sent as either a PDF, Text or RTF Document to us. The course was given in English and we preferred the applications to be in English.

The enrollment application was used as a basis for a personal discussion, which we had with them in the second week of the semester. They needed to have programming skills and some interest in social science. They were made aware that this course was a straining timely burden on their semester schedules!

The game prototypes were developed by students in teams consisting of 6 participants. Each group had one person responsible for graphics, two people responsible for level design and interface coding and three people that work on the game mechanics and game programming issues. Our goal is to create teams, which consist of designers(FH), Medienbildner, Computational Visualists and Computer Science students.

Time periods

• Two 90 minute lectures each week (for one semester)
• One 90 minute exercise class and one non-obligatory additional programming tutorial (90 minutes) each week

Course Structure

Course description

Lectures discussed the following topics in detail:

• Game Production
• Game Theory and Balancing
• Gameplay and Interaction Design
• Game Developer Jobs
• Game Tools and Squeak
• Game Ideas (IPs and Branding)
• Narrative Elements
• Level Design
• Game Business

Course learning objectives

• Create a real-life production environment (within a University sandbox)
• Expose students to many guest lectures from the industry

Weekly topics

1. Course Organization
2. Game Design Introduction
3. Game Production Process
4. Developing the Game Idea
5. Squeak Behind The Scenes Session
6. Production Roles and Tools
7. Structure and Elements of Games
8. Gameplay and Game Balance
9. Level Design and Character Development
10. Storytelling in Games
11. User Interaction Design
12. Game Business
13. Post-Mortems

Course Materials & Facilities Used

Here you can link to and/or describe books and other materials you used for this course. Feel free to create new pages for each item here if a page for it does not yet exist.

Books

• Introduction to Game Development Steve Rabin
• Rules of Play Salen, Zimmerman
• Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design Rollings, Adams
• Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping and Playtesting Games Tracy Fullerton, Chris Swain, Steve Hoffman

Other materials

Papers, magazines, videos (add links to online materials)

Software (engines, tools)

• Squeak (Tweak)
• impara Game Engine
• Buccaneer Framework

Syllabus

Course Homepage

Slides

Course Homepage

Assessment materials

to come

Digital media used in class

e.g. Video, Multimedia sources, Audio

(link to each file's storage location)

Case studies

(link to each file's storage location) or each respective wiki page

Tutorial files

(link to each file's storage location)

Other materials

(link to an uploaded resources -- e.g. research papers -- or external storage location)

Analysis of learning methods

What worked

The students were highly motivated and self-propelled. Almost all of them worked good in the teams.

What didn't work

Squeak was the wrong choice of programming environment and lead to many issues and problems.