GENE8001
Session 2
This course is not currently offered.
Students interested in game design are recommended to consider taking COMP4431 instead.
Create your own computer games using Game Maker without writing a single line of code!
To see what is involved, look through the Game Maker tutorials. For more information on the course, email ge8001@cse.unsw.edu.au.
Bulletin Board: This is a great place to brainstorm game ideas and form groups!
Please note that GENE8001 is not available for credit to students who are
enrolled in a CSE program or major. Please email undergrad@cse.unsw.edu.au if you have any questions or concerns.
Description
Students will work in groups to create a computer game of their
choosing using "Game Maker". With Game Maker, students can use simple
drag-and-drop actions to create professional looking games without
having to write any code in a traditional programming language. Each
week, there will be a one hour lecture and one hour of supervised
group work on the game. Lectures will cover both the art (e.g. liberal
arts, the social sciences, and psychology) and science (e.g. computer
graphics, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction,
security, distributed programming and simulation) of computer game
design.
Staff
LIC: Amir Michail (contact: amichail@cse.unsw.edu.au)
Tutor: Angela Finlayson (contact: angf@cse.unsw.edu.au)
Lectures
TH 4-5 EE G24
Lecture Notes
Be sure to study all of the following lecture notes for the exam, including the Game Maker tutorials.
Supervised Group Work
There will be one hour of supervised group work each week, starting in
week 2. Usually, this will occur in the oboe lab, but it may at times
immediately follow the lecture and take place also in EE G24.
Assessment
- Supervised Group Work: 10% (attendance will be taken; regular attendance is critical to score highly on this component)
- Assignment 1: 10%
- Assignment 2: 10%
- Assignment 3: 30%
- Final Exam: 40%
Exam Info
The gene8001 exam will be held Nov 24 from 2:30-4:30 (there is no reading time) in Webster A (F Hall A).
Please come at least 15 minutes early.
Be sure to bring a 2B pencil & eraser for the multiple choice answer sheet.
The exam will consist of 40 multiple choice questions. Each question has four answers to pick from.
A correct answer is worth 3 marks. An incorrect answer is worth -1 marks. An answer left blank is worth 0 marks.
Each question has exactly one correct answer. The best answer will be taken to be the correct answer.
Here's a sample question:
In the Game Maker scrolling shooter tutorial, which of the following is true of the controller_enemy object?
a. it has no associated sprite
b. it controls the creation of enemy planes
c. both a and b
d. neither a nor b
Selecting a or b would not be correct since c is a better answer: both a and b are true.
If you send me questions by email to amichail@cse.unsw.edu.au, I can set up an FAQ to help you study for the exam.
Assignments
You will have the opportunity to build two games of your choosing using Game Maker. There will be three assignments as follows:
- Game 1
- Design Document for Game 2
- Game 2
All assignments are to be done in groups of five.
Assignment 3
You can find the assignment 3 spec here.
Assignment 2
You can find the assignment 2 spec here.
Assignment 1
The first assignment requires you to build an action game, which may
or may not be a shooter. Action games are all about reaction time and
hand-eye coordination under pressure.
Marking will be as follows:
[5 marks] Good use of all of the following gamemaker features: time lines, the path tool, alarms, collision checking, sound effects, background music, interesting background for room(s), "controller" object(s), object inheritance (to avoid duplication of events/actions), scoring system, high score list, health, number of lives .
[2.5 marks] Difficulty of implementation (not whether the game is ambitious but what was actually done)
[2.5 marks] Overall result (e.g., is it fun? does it require good reaction time and hand-eye coordination under pressure? does it get progressively more difficult? does it have interesting goals? etc)
Assignment 1 is due Thu of week 6 (Sept 1) @ 23:59:59.
Make sure you read the group work section below. Please do not spend much time creating fancy graphics/sound. (Just use freely available graphics/sound files on the web, perhaps from one of the gamemaker resource packs.) What matters more is a serious contribution to the actual game play coding.
Please create a game from scratch. If you do look at some game maker files for help, please be sure to say this in your game description. However, it's not acceptable to take an existing game maker game and add a few features to it. Also, please take a look at the plagiarism policy.
Group Work
Please note that all members of a group are expected to make
significant contributions to each assignment.
For each assignment submission, you will need to explain what each
member of the group did.
It is possible that not all members of a group will receive the same
mark.
Moreover, groups can change after an assignment submission, so
students who contribute little may find themselves without a group and
they will then have to find another group.
Textbook
There is no required textbook for this course, but you may want to look at the following book:
Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design
Here are some games listed on the Game Maker site. Click on a screenshot to download. (Windows required.) See the Game Maker site for game descriptions.