This is where I display grades and organize resources for CS3380 — Game Development


Fall 2019
Class Schedule: 11:00 - 11:50 MWF (S 228)



Final Presentation: Thursday Dec 12, 3:30pm-5:30pm

Current Grades
(Note: the final grades are not fully accurate as they are not weighted according to the syllabus description, but are posted here regardless in order to give a general idea of individual progress)




Links of Interest:

• C# Help (TutorialsPoint.com)



Procedural Rhetoric
• Games vs. Reality -- Short Essay by Phil Eklund
• Why the CIA uses board games to train its officers
• Games in the Classroom

Storytelling in Games
• Why are the stories in video games so bad?
• Is Dark Souls the Future of Storytelling?
• Trinity Text-Adventure (Infocom 1986)


GameShow Episodes (PBS Digital Studios)
• Hidden Genius of Monopoly's Rules
• What Does Your Favorite Game-Type Say About You?


• Is Dark Souls the Future of Storytelling?
• Why Do We Like Tetris?
• Is the FPS Dying, or Evolving?


Greg Costikyan Essays
• I Have No Words & I Must Design
• Don't Be a Vidiot
• Game Criticism, Why We Need It, and Why Reviews Aren't It



• Kim Swift (Portal Designer) Origin Story


Rym DeCosta Lectures
• Atari Game Design
• Designing Game Rules
• Rare Game Mechanics
• 40 Games You Must Play
• Game Balance
• Practical Game Theory


GameMaker's Toolkit
• How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves
• What Makes Good AI?
• How Her Story Works



• The Unbeatable Game from the 60s: Dr NIM


• Diablo II Design -- Oral History




The Underrated Importance of Sand
• Warnings of Sand Scarcity
• Greenland's Melting Sand Glacier




• Gaming WWIII


• Rust randomly chooses player-race and -gender for you


• Programming Console Games in C#
• GeoGuessr: An example of a new technology being turned into a "game"
• Facebook News Feed — History of WWI
• Oversimplified History of WWI



• The Curse of Cow Clicker: On exploitationware "social games" (Wired)


• Subway Simulator!: This is fun?!? (Kernel)
• Solving Monopoly with Markov Chains (Business Insider)


• The Point - Tabletop vs. Gaming (GameSpot)
• New to Boardgames? Boardgame Evangelism (SUSD)
• Boardgaming's Golden Age: Why play boardgames when I have videogames? More Boardgame Evangelism (SUSD)

Homework Assignments:

• Final Project & Presentation: -- Due Dec 9-12
  Final Game-Project Class Presentation
  


• HW9: Oligarchs vs. Organ-Donors Simulation: Due Mon Dec 9
  HW9 Description
  
  


• HW8b: On Mars Analysis -- and Game Design Teaser -- Due Mon Nov 25
  HW8b Details
  
  
  Also: Bring a color slide to class on Monday so your group can display a teaser (and ~5min talk) for your upcoming game design project
  
  
  Sneak Peek: Crepuscular game trailer
  


• HW8a: Choose a Computer-implemented Boardgame to Present: Due Mon Oct. 28
  HW8a GameList
  
  Confirm your choice with Prof. Neville. Your choice is confirmed when your names are listed next to your chosen game in the GoogleDocument above.
  
  


• HW7: Game Design Proposal : Due Mon Oct. 28
  In groups of up to three students, write up a game design proposal for an original computer game.
  HW7 Description
  
  Design Proposals should be turned in to all team members' TurnIn folders.
  
  


• HP6: Reading, and 3 Game Critiques: Due Mon Oct. 14, 21
  Read the ruleset to Primordial Soup (located in your course INFO folder)
  
  HP6 Description Due Mon Oct. 21
  
  


• HP5: Pirate's Dice Rule-Tuning — Due Fri Oct. 11
  HP5 Description



• HW4: Can't Stop implementation — Due Fri Oct. 04
  HW4 Description



• HW3: Due Fri Sep. 20
  HW3 description
  
  Create a free account at CodinGame.com, and program solutions in C# for the following exercises:
  1. Onboarding
  2. Power of Thor
  3. Mars Lander: Level 1
  4. Mars Lander: Level 2
  
  
  Example Solutions for "Mars Lander: Level 2":
  Test Case 1
  Test Case 2
  Test Case 3
  Test Case 4
  Test Case 5
  
  
  See the GoogleDocs HW description for additional details.
  Turn in your completed homework (as a Word doc report) in the CS3380 TurnIn folder as well as a printed copy in-class.



• HW2: Reading: Due Fri Sep. 13
  Read the Greg Costikyan Essay: "I Have No Words, & I Must Design - Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games"
  Write a 2-3 page essay summarizing Costikyan's viewpoint on games and how it relates to our classroom definition-attempts in class so far this semester.
  Hand in printed report in-class on due-date.
  
  
• HP1: Due On a Monday
  First, sign up with me (in a group of three, preferably) to play a tabletop game at GEEK Club next Tuesday at 7pm.
  Play a different game than has been presented previously in-class.
  The following Monday, give a presentation with your group in Powerpoint (~10-15 slides) to give an overview of the game you played, and describe the game-elements it contained that we've seen in-class so far.
  
  • (May also use www.boardgamegeek.com as picture-source)
  
  Turn in the group Powerpoint file (or a text-file containing a link to your GooglePresent or Online_PowerPoint file) to each team-member's course TurnIn folder.
  
  Class Presentations
  • Bloodborne: the Cardgame
  • KeyFlower
  • KeyFlower
  
  
  
  
• HP0: Due Wed Aug 28
  Understanding Games 1
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