Class
Groups
- Students form a mini game company consisting of 3 or 4 students
in a
group (depending on class size).
- If someone in a group drops the class then the remaining students
will have to share the load.
- If both members of the group drop the class then the remaining
student will join another group.
- If you have a dispute in your group, try to resolve it amongst
yourselves. You are your own game company so as "employees" YOU have to
deal with these kinds of issues on your own. A useful
"management" tip - if there is a problem, bring it
up
early rather than later- before the problem festers. In the middle of the semester and at the
end of the semester you will fill
out a form to
evaluate your other team members. I will use this to decide how to
assign grades to each person in the team. I will know if you are not
pulling your own weight.
Assignments
ASSIGNMENT 1: Learning About Unity3D and 3D Modeling:
Go through Unity3D
and Blender tutorials.
CS Students will develop a simple
pinball-like game using Unity3D.
- Minimum
requirements:
- Launch at
least 1 ball.
- Ball must move
using Unity physics.
- Two paddles to
deflect ball.
- At least
some obstacles that deflect the ball.
Art Students
will create 3D models and import them into Unity3D.
- Minimum
requirements:
- Create a drawn
sketch for at least 2 objects you want to create.
- Create 3D
models of at least 2 objects, one object must have an imbedded
animation.
- All
objects must have textures on them.
- All
objects must be viewable from within Unity3D.
ASSIGNMENT 2: Brainstorm
Presentations
Each group is going to have to give
a
presentation consisting of the following information:
- Name of your video game company
- Your company's web site
- Introduction to your team members and their roles in the company
- 5 minute storyboard presentation of your final gameplay idea
- Explain how your game idea answers the questions addressed in at
least 3 AGD cards.
- All your storyboards must be posted on your web site
ASSIGNMENT 3: One Page
Project Management Sheet
Fill
out this sheet for your team
ASSIGNMENT 4: Mid-semester Game Progress
Report
Give
a 15
minute
demonstration and presentation on the status of your game.
You
need to ensure the day before your
presentation that everything is working perfectly on the
system you are going to demonstrate on. You will NOT
be allowed to install or fiddle with your demo during your
demonstration time. For all presentations make sure that:
- You end your presentation on time.
I will
kick you off if you go over time.
- You have readable slides with
large
enough
fonts and a readable color scheme.
- Your thoughts are well organized.
- The
Demo Works!
ASSIGNMENT 5: FINAL Demonstration & Documentation
Most
of
your
grade
for
the
class
hinges
on
this.
Approximately 20
minutes per group- depending on how many groups are in the class.
- Final presentation and demo
- Describe:
- Game play
- The game engine and tools you used.
- How the AI and the graphical/audio effects are
implemented.
- Especially highlight any capabilities that you
thought were particularly impressive. e.g. a clever AI scheme, a visual
effect, a sound effect.
- Features of the game that you put in because you
thought
it would make the game fun.
- Concepts that you learned from the lectures that you
applied or attempted to apply to your game. For example:
- From the game programming lecture have you used a
finite state machine for your game?
- From the Game Design lecture on "What Do Players
Expect" what categories have you tried to incorporate in your game?
e.g. Players expect a consistent world.
- From the Sound and Psychoacoustics lecture, what
characteristics of sound have you tried to incorporate? e.g. Sounds set
a pace to the game.
- From the Perception lecture, what aspects of the
human perceptual system have you attempted to take into account? e.g. I
have created low detailed health bars in the corners of the screen
where your peripheral vision does not have the resolution to resolve
the detail during an intense game experience.
- Tradeoffs that you had to make in the game and what
ultimately led you to the final decision.
- How would you have approached the development of the
game if you had the chance to do it all over again.
- How has this experience affected the way you think
about
commercial games?
- Completed web site that includes:
- Gameplay design document.
- Screenshots of sketches.
- Screenshots of the actual game screens.
- Screen capture of the game in play. Use a program like
Fraps (www.fraps.com) to do the capture.
- Explanation of all design tradeoffs that you had to
make- ie what you originally envisioned vs what you accomplished.
- Explanation of the overall software design- including
data
structures, finite state machines, pseudo-code algorithms for the
graphics, AI, sound, main game engine.
- Explanations of how specific visual and audio effects
were
achieved.
- Downloadable ZIP file containing an executeable that
runs
as
a standalone game.
- Downloadable ZIP file containing the source code and
image
and music files.
- All the above in 1 giant ZIP file placed at ftp.evl.uic.edu/pub2/INcoming/cs426
- Email me when the giant ZIP file is put there.
- Email
FINAL
Personnel Evaluations
Late
assignment turn-in policy
- None. Every class project in the last several
years have said that the number one thing they could have done better
was to manage their schedules. Groups that were able to keep to their
timelines usually got an A. Groups that didn't, were usually developing
code for several days without any sleep right up to the deadline only
to get a B, or worse, a C in the class. So whatever motivates you to
keep on time, DO IT. This something you will face in the real world
(both industry and academia), and especially in the game industry- so
better get used to it now.
Final Exams
- None. Final grades will be determined by what you have been
able
to achieve through the class and mainly the quality and quantity of
work you are able to demonstrate at the end of the semester when
compared with your peers. Basically I rank the game groups and give the
top 3 groups As, the next 3 groups Bs, and the last 4 groups Cs or
Ds. This is assuming that all your personnel evaluations show
that everyone is doing their job.
Class
Groups
LSU's
Class
Web Site
Company
Names
&
Web
Sites
|
|
Game
Concept
|
Team
1 - NxtLevel
Games
UIC
- Derek Bolt (LEAD)
- Kamal Sarumi
- Adam McGovern
LSU
- Will Lee
- Gretchen Bangs (ART)
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Team
2 - Bit Please
UIC
- Erickson, Chris (LEAD)
- Denney, Bryanna
- Medina, Nazareno
LSU
- Ghimire, Bibek
- Johnson, Jessica (Art)
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Team
3 - Dead Pixel
UIC
- Kevin McCray
- Hung Yuk Park
- Boris A. Umantsev
LSU
- Brandon Michael Watts (Art)
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Team
4 - When It's Done
UIC
- Li, Qin (LEAD)
- Herrmann, Bradley
- Morua, Michael (Art)
LSU
- Chouest, Stephen
- Irving, Sam
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Team
5 - T5
UIC
- Abner O. Cordon (LEAD)
- Kowalski, Pete B.
- Grunchich, Paul L.
LSU
- Echavarria, Uriel A. (Art)
- Vo, Truong N. (CS)
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Team
6
- O.C.D (Obviously Coded Drunk)
LSU
- Alvin George Wallace Jr. (LEAD)
- Josh Newbins
- Rochelle Wooden(ART)
CS
- Joseph Rodriguez
- Andrew Sennebogen
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Team
7 - Umm Yeah Games
LSU
- Chad Thompson - (LEAD)
- Jessica Carazo
- Andre Langston (ART)
UIC
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Team
8 - Battle
Kitten Software
LSU
- Alan Miller (LEAD)
- Leah Farner (Art)
- Chris McKnight
UIC
- Shaheer Ahmed
- Matthew Ramir
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Team
9 - Team 9
LSU
- Brent Ragas (LEAD)
- Juan Mendez
UIC
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Team
10 - WTFunativity
LSU
- Patrick Doucet (LEAD)
- Kendall Baumy (Art)
- Brady Delhomme (Art)
UIC
- Yuriy Myronchenko
- Stanley Chui
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Team
11 - Sharp
Edge
Games
UIC
- Brian Mykietka (LEAD)
- Brad McGinnis
- Ashwini Naik
LSU
- Chris Migliore
- TahJah Krauss (ART)
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