Hey /prog/ I've been offered a job to teach game programming. What games should I have my students make? I was thinking start off with a text-based RPG, then Tetris, Space Invaders, Pacman, Super Mario. Anything I should add or replace on the list? It's a 12 month course so, I don't want to overload them.
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-01 1:04
What exactly are you teaching them to program their games using?
It doesn't need to be said that game programming courses are bullshit. Focus on FSMs and linear algebra I guess. Then tell them to go read a couple of Sam's TY2HMA in 24 hours books and call it a day.
Haxing Anus Adventure 2: The Pleasure of Being Cummed Inside
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-01 10:46
Anus Haxing Adventure 2: The Pleasure of Being Cummed Inside
sounds better
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-01 11:30
Hm, I think you should try to make them understand that programming is all about problem solving and there are many ways to solve a particular problem. And that they shouldn't be afraid of challenges.
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-01 11:56
Get them to write visual novels.
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-01 12:11
Anus Haxing Adventure 3: The Revenge of the Prolapsing Anus
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-01 12:20
start out with pygame or actionscript, then move on to some DirectX or OpenGL
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-01 12:35
op, it doesnt matter what you'll teach them. if they havent programmed before they're doomed for failure. fuck them and fuck you for settling on a dead-end job.
If your own suggestions were so low-level as Pacman and Tetris, this is an introductory course? Perhaps you should categorize the lessons around concepts of game programming rather than just programming games itself.
A couple of things you should encourage teaching them: start with Pacman, which will give them a minor AI and pathfinding demonstration, as well as cover other basics and even have a minor lesson about state flags (the power pellet). You can also play with how the basic game of Pacman works if you want to make it more complicated.
Asteroids, pinball, or Marble Madness, for more modeling more complicated physics. From this, you should also talking about animating the different state of the PC and NPCs in a game based on their actions or reaction to their environment. Sprites and [action] animation and such.
An ASCII or simple tile-based dungeon crawl, demonstrating the ever-vanishing art of procedural generation and dealing with turn-based and real-time combat. You can toss something about party mechanics into that, if you want. Build onto that for state-based gaming (questing) and text-based conversation/interaction to include puzzles.
At some point, I suggest you double-back to chess, go, or risk. To encourage designing complex, yet still effective and timely, AI that can mimic strategy.
A good source of demonstrations could be finding well-made flash games and getting a flash decompiler, Doom (which is exceedingly well documented), and rummaging through David Wong's Unique Video Game Glitches archive to make the students consider why things can go wrong in game programming. Also, you should use Nethack, Dwarf Fortress, or another well-documented freeware game to discuss related topics.
Ask them to start working on their final project shortly before or after the midterm.
I recommend staying away from Tower Defense games.
I have no teaching degree and this post had only a half-hour planning put into it.
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-01 19:33
"Haxus" by Amateur Grider
Prague is a region. St Sussman Cathedral is a room in Prague. "This cathedral is a temple to the almighty Sussman, whose teachings bestow [italic type]satori[roman type] on unworthy programmers such as your humble self."
The IO monad is a transparent container in St Sussman Cathedral. The monad is closed, locked, and not portable. The description is "A referentially transparent data structure made of pure Haskellonium. You'll need some kind of rigorous mathematical proof to be able to open it."
A pristine copy of SICP is in the monad. The description is "[if open]You gleefully flip from page to page of the holiest book in the universe![otherwise]The immaculate sacred tome of Sussmanism glints at you sparklingly.[end if]". SICP is a portable container. Satori is in SICP. SICP is closed and opaque. SICP can be read or unread. SICP is unread.
Fibonacci Butt Street is a room in Prague. It is south of St Sussman Cathedral. "The buildings on this street are laid out according to the arcane [italic type]feng shui[roman type] variant known as the Fibonacci Butt Sort."
>>26
Is that really what Inform 7 looks like? I'm still using 6, and that looks gross.
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-02 19:10
Don't start them off on text-based RPGs. It's a lot of hard work for little gain, or, if you use something like Inform 7, a fair bit of work from which they'll learn nothing.
don't forget game of life
also: skip text based games focus on graphics instead
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-03 3:37
Faggots
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-03 3:38
( ≖‿≖) D
( ≖‿≖ ) I
(≖‿≖ ) C
(‿≖ ) K
(≖ )
( ) T
( ) O
( ≖) W
( ≖‿) E
( ≖‿≖) R
I'm pretty sure that he'll enjoy being stuffed into anuses of clueless toddlers. ( ≖‿≖)
( ≖‿≖) R
( ≖‿) E
( ≖) W
( ) O
( ) T
(≖ )
(‿≖ ) K
(≖‿≖ ) C
( ≖‿≖ ) I
( ≖‿≖) D
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-03 3:39
you are all faggots you all are
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-03 20:30
Forget the workload, have them make Demon's Souls. Given that they will join the industry after that, it's fair to give them a chance to do at least one good game in their whole life.
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-04 3:32
I spent about 3-4 months creating a game in C++ with OpenGL. It was a game that centered around the main character who had to save the King's land from the evil forces of a Time Mage. It was hell coding it, because prior to doing this I had little to no experience in Win32/OpenGL. In the end, I didn't get all I wanted complete and I was mighty disappointed. It was hackish the entire way through to achieve what I wanted, and could have been much better.
Set your students up with a good foundation first, this is the most important thing. Think about the most basic computer games made, and separate them into teachable skills to aid the students. I.e. bounds checking, AI, states, a lot of what #23 talked about. In the end, the majority of them probably won't want to keep making games, but it's better for them to learn from the ground up than blindly running into it like me.
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-04 4:16
>save the King's land from the evil forces of a Time Mage
Whats the plot,setting and main quest?
Name:
a!!HOvW/sYXJdSCekx2010-04-04 4:20
a
Name:
b!V3./gPwYyk2010-04-04 4:20
b
Name:
Anonymous2010-04-04 4:43
>>42
I'm assuming the main quest is to save the King's land from the evil forces of a Time Mage.