CMI 3377 (Spring 2024)
A downloadable project
Let's Make Games Together
This is a class in which you'll learn to make games and learn how games get made! It requires your diligence in the face of difficulty and the willingness to do something outside your comfort zone.
But I promise it will be rewarding! And unlike anything you've done before.
Weekly Tasks
Each week, you will compose a Game Snack based on the readings and submit it to the Teams channel for everyone to read.
Schedule
Guide:
- 🔰 Tutorials
- 💾 Exercise Prompt
- 📥 Due Date
- 🖥️ Studio Time
- 🔎 In-Class Analysis
- 🗣️ Discussion
Week 1
In preparation: Come to Class!
January 10 (Wed.)
Discuss: Expectations, Schedule, Graphical Logics
In-class: sign up for an open processing account and join our Teams group.
Week 2
In preparation: Watch "The Making of Vampire Survivors - Documentary" and read Anthropy and Clark Chapter 1 - Language
January 15 (Mon.) 🚫 MLK Day - No Class
January 17 (Wed.) 🔰 Dev Camp 1: The Basics of Code
Check out the Learning P5play resources page!
💾 Start Exercise #1: Create at least three sprites with different colors and then get them to move in different directions (using velocity). It's okay if they go offscreen and never come back.
Week 3
In preparation: Read Anthropy and Clark Chapter 2 - Verbs & Objects and Chapter 3 - Scenes
📥 Due Jan. 22 (before class, 3:00 pm) — Exercise #1: Submit 'Moving Sprites' (above) link to Teams
January 22 (Mon.) 🔰 Dev Camp 2: Collisions, Conditionals, and More Variables
Discuss Verbs and Objects
💾 Start on Exercise #2 (Exercise #2 was delayed)
January 24 (Wed.) 🔰 Dev Camp 3: Sprite Groups
💾 Start on Exercise #2: Coin Collector (With a Reset): Using whatever control mechanism you like for a sprite called "Player," have them collide with a bunch of coins and display that as a score using text in the sketch. When you collect all of coins, have them "respawn" (reappear). This exercise is going to challenge you to try to put a few concepts together—variables, collisions, interaction, groups—so do your best to reason through it!
Week 4
In preparation: Read from Williams' History of Digital Games Chatpter 3 on Early Commercialized Digital Games and watch "Design Icons: Space Invaders" (Game Maker's Toolkit)
📥 Due Jan 29 (before class, 3:00 pm) — Exercise #2: Coin Collector (With a Reset)
January 29 (Mon.) 🔎 Analyzing Early Games
Discuss the programming logic of early video games.
💾 Start on Exercise #3: "A spaceship that shoots"
- Challenge 1: A little spaceship at the bottom and you can press spacebar to shoot missiles upwards
- Challenge 2: The spaceship moves left and right and shoots
- Challenge 3: Add in some little alien enemies (green squares are fine) to destroy with the missiles
January 31 (Wed.) 🔰 Dev Camp 4: Putting It Together
📥 Due Jan 31 (before class, 3:00 pm) — Exercise #3: "A spaceship that shoots"
💾 Start on Exercise #4: "A spaceship that shoots but make it like a real game" (You should do at least challenges 4-6, but also give 7 and 8 a try!)
- Challenge 4: Add a score
- Challenge 5: Give the aliens interesting movement
- Challenge 6: Make one or more aliens that behave differently
- Challenge 7: Make some of the aliens worth more points!
- Challenge 8: When the player destroys all aliens, have them respawn.
Week 5
In preparation: Read Anthropy and Clark Chapter 4 - Context and Chapter 5 - Dialogue. Then watch "The Best Games from GMTK Game Jam 2023" from Game Makers Toolkit.
📥 Due Feb 5 (before class, 3:00 pm) — Exercise #4: "A spaceship that shoots"
February 5 (Mon.) 🖥️ Game Jam
February 7 (Wed.) 🖥️ Game Jam
Week 6
In Preparation: Read Williams' History of Digital Games Chapter 4 The Golden Age of Arcade and then watch "What Pac-Man Brought to Game Design" (Game Maker's Toolkit)
🍿 Sunday Feb 11 by 11:59pm: Game Snack #1 (submit to the Teams Game Snacks channel).
February 12 (Mon.) 🎮 Game Jam Showcase
(We're doing the Game Jam showcase on Wednesday instead.)
February 14 (Wed.) 💬 P5Play Reflection
📥 Due Feb 14 (before class, 3:00 pm) Game Jam games! At a minimum, you should have one functioning level (or round/wave/segment) of your game that can be played from start to finish. Ideally, try to build 3 rounds!
Week 7
In preparation: watch Jeremy Parish's Game Boy Retrospective and read Bogost and Montfort on the Atari 2600 game Combat from Racing the Beam. (These two are paired together so that you can consider how hardware affects the kinds of games that can be made for a platform.)
🍿 Sunday Feb 18 by 11:59pm: Game Snack #2
February 19 (Mon.) 🔰 Introducing GB Studio
February 21 (Wed.) 🔰 Scenes & Scripting
Make sure to bookmark the new GB Studio Resources Page on Itch. (You can also see it from the main wreckem.itch.io page )
💾 Star GB Exercise #1: Using art/assets you download from Itch, build a game with three scenes. Place Triggers to warp an animated player Actor from one room to another and back again. Add collision barriers to the tiles in the world. Throw in a few NPCs with a line of dialog or two. Add an item that can be "picked up." Get one of those NPCs to recognize you have the item!
Week 8
In preparation: watch a few videos from Jeremy Parish's Game Boy Works series and pair that with Anthropy and Clark Chapter 6 - Resistance
Your Game Snack should be about Anthropy and Clark's concept of 'resistance' as seen in one of the Game Boy Works game examples you watched.
🍿 Sunday Feb 25 by 11:59pm: Game Snack #3
February 26 (Mon.) 🔰 Sprite Graphics
📥 Due Feb 26th by 3:00pm Zip your whole Game Boy project folder and submit it to Teams assignment folder.
February 28 (Wed.) 🔰 Tile Graphics
Week 9
In preparation: Read Kremers - Introduction to Level Design
- Ch 1. Game Design vs. Level Design
- Ch 2. Teaching Mechanisms
- Ch. 3 Level Design Goals and Hierarchies
🍿 Sunday March 3 by 11:59pm: Game Snack #4
March 4 (Mon.)
📥 Due March 4th by 3:00pm. Build me a single-scene platforming game like we made in class. Create a background using Tiled, ensure the game type is in Platformer mode, add collisions to the platforms, and find an animated sprite for your player's actor. No need to make it fancy. This is just to demonstrate you understand GB Studio's platforming mode. Zip your whole Game Boy project folder and submit it to Teams assignment folder
March 6 (Wed.) 🗣️ Level Design Basics
March 11/13 — SPRING BREAK
Be thinking about your GB Studio platforming level. And don't forget you have a Game Snack the Sunday you get back.
Week 11
In preparation: Watch Game Maker's Toolkit "The Secret of Mario's Jump (and other Versatile Verbs)"
🍿 Sunday March 17 by 11:59pm: Game Snack #5
March 18 (Mon.) 🗣️ Thinking Mechanically
March 20 (Wed.) 🖥️ Pairs Studio
Week 12
In preparation: Read Kremers' Introduction to Level Design Ch. 4 Level Design Structure and Methodology
🍿 Sunday March 24 by 11:59pm: Game Snack #6
March 25 (Mon.) 🗣️ Providing Challenge
March 27 (Wed.) 🚫 No Class (Dr. S is at a Conference)
Week 13
"Pushing Buttons: When even PlayStation is cutting jobs, something is seriously wrong with games" by Keza McDonald for The Guardian
"The Tremendous Yet Troubled State of Gaming in 2024" by Matthew Ball
This game snack is a little different, so you should write about something you've learned about the current state of the video game industry.
🍿 Monday April 5 by 11:59pm: Game Snack #7
April 1 (Mon.) 🚫 No Class (Easter Holiday)
April 3 (Wed.) 🗣️ Game Industry Roles
📥 Platformer Exercise Due
Week 14
In Prepration: The Gaming Historian on The Story of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Game Maker's Toolkit's Boss Keys: Link Awakening
🍿 Sunday April 7 by 11:59pm: Game Snack #8
April 8 (Mon.) — Level Designing Zelda
April 10 (Wed.) 🔰 Working with Music and Sound
In-class: The Sound of Hyper Light Drifter (GDC talk by Akash Thakkar)
Week 15
In Preparation: Watch Applying 3D Level Design Skills to the 2D World of Hyper Light Drifter and read the "Zen and the Art of Retro Level Design in Kudzu" from the GB Studio guide.
🍿 Sunday April 16 by 11:59pm: (Optional) Game Snack #9
April 15 (Mon.) 🗣️ Discussion
April 17 (Wed.) 🖥️ Studio
Week 16
In Preparation: I want you to find some articles or video essays to watch for this week. Any of the game design analysis videos from Game Maker's Toolkit would make great options but if you want to go rogue and watch something like hbomberguy's "Pathologic is Genius and Here's Why" then go wild.
🍿 Sunday April 23 by 11:59pm: (Optional) Game Snack #10
April 22 (Mon.) 🖥️ Studio
April 24 (Wed.) 🖥️ Playtest
Week 17
April 29 (Mon.) 🖥️ Project Help Session
May 4th (Final Projects Due online by 7pm / no in-person final)
