15-466/666: Computer Game Programming (original) (raw)

Computer Game Programming (Fall, 2023)

TR 15:00-16:50 in Posner Hall 151.

Taught by Jim McCann (Office Hours after class in EDSH 229 or by appointment.)

With TA help from Alan Lee (Office Hours Monday 17:00-19:00 in the Smith Hall second floor common area; e-mail here.)

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Games

In this class, we made a bunch of small games, as well as five final games. These games were launch[ed] live and in person on Friday, December 8th at 4-7pm in Tepper Simmons B.

Course Goals

Computer Game Programming will help you build the programming skills needed to turn ideas into games. This means we'll be covering both runtime systems and the asset pipelines to fuel them, along with some game-design exercises (with an eye to thrifty code).

The philosophy of this course is to learn by building games, from (nearly) the ground up — this means lots of C++ and OpenGL hacking, a smattering of scripting (shell, python, javascript), and a lot of documentation-reading. You do not need to be an expert in any of these things, but it would help if you are familiar with C++ and the modern OpenGL (3.3+) API.

Previous years with similar content:Game Programming '22,Game Programming '21,Game Programming '20,Game Programming '19,Game Programming '18,Game Programming '17,Game Programming '09.

Work

Students will be graded out of 20 + 3_N_ + 6 points, divided as follows:

Points Work
6 Class Participation
3_N_ Small Games
20 Final Game

You will often be reading lesson materials asynchronously, then discussing the material in class; your class participation score will be based on your contributions to these discussions (as well as the written answers in the lesson materials). Small games will be assigned roughly weekly to highlight basic game-related functions. The Final Game will be a larger undertaking by groups of 3-4.

There are no late days; however, if your lowest small game score is less than 3, it will be replaced by a 3 when computing your grade.

Life Advice

Being sick isn't fun.University health services often has flu vaccine available starting in September. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 measures may also work well against influenza.

Mental health is an important aspect of physical health. CMU's CaPS services exist to help you manage your mental state.

If you have a disability and are registered with the Office of Disability Resources, I encourage you to use their online system to notify me of your accommodations and discuss your needs with me as early in the semester as possible. I will work with you to ensure that accommodations are provided as appropriate. If you suspect that you may have a disability and would benefit from accommodations but are not yet registered with the Office of Disability Resources, I encourage you to contact them at access@andrew.cmu.edu.

Don't Steal

Using other people's code or data without giving credit is plagiarism. Plagiarism is an immoral activity that I take very seriously.If you plagiarize, you will fail the class, and I will do my best to make sure you are removed from CMU entirely.

All you need to do to avoid plagiarism is to make sure to give credit for the code and data you use in you project. Something as simple as the comment "//based on https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_CreateWindow" can save your academic career from ruin.

Additionally, most human-created works are covered by copyright and thus subject to some sort of license agreement. Make sure that code and data you use has a license agreement compatible with this course. For example, I am unwilling to pay for a license for a library so I can compile your code, or sign a non-disclosure agreement so I can read it.

"AI" note: treat the output of generative "AI" tools as you do web search results. They are distillations of other people's work. You did not make them, you queried for them. Don't try to pass them off as your own work, do cite properly, do consider the licenses of any potential constituent work.

Finally, there are two course rules which restrict your use of others' code beyond the basic requirements of ethics and legality:

  1. Avoid code from previous iterations of this course. There is a lot of it out there, but just don't look at it. You will learn less.
  2. Follow any game-specific rules. (E.g., some games require you to author all assets yourself so you understand the tools.)

Work Together

This is a course that involves writing a lot of code. Please, by all means, work together!

Resources

The course does not have a textbook. However, there are several documents available on the internet that you may find useful:

There are also some great, cross-platform content-creation tools that we will use in our asset pipelines:

And some places to get free game assets:

Schedule

Thur 7 Sep

Thur 14 Sep

Tues 19 Sep

Thur 21 Sep

Tues 26 Sep

Thur 28 Sep

Tues 3 Oct

Thur 5 Oct

Tues 10 Oct

No Class: Jim is at SCF.

Thur 12 Oct

Tues 17 Oct

No Class: Fall Break

Thur 19 Oct

No Class: Fall Break

Tues 24 Oct

Thur 26 Oct

Tues 31 Oct

Tues 7 Nov

No Class: Democracy Day

Tues 14 Nov

Tues 21 Nov

Thur 23 Nov

No Class: Thanksgiving Break

Tues 28 Nov

Thur 30 Nov

Tues 5 Dec

Thur 7 Dec

OUT Sep 28 Game5: Walkmesh DUE Oct 5

OUT Oct 24 final A: Prototype DUE Oct 31

OUT Nov 9 final C: Build Out DUE Nov 30