Course Introduction Videogame Design and Programming. Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi

Transcription

1 Course Introduction Videogame Design and Programming

2 Welcome to the course of videogame design and programming!

3 Sorry but the course does not really exist, at the moment is a work in progress J

4

5 Assassin Creed Revelations

6 Uncharted 3

7 Call of Duty MW3

8 What is your goal in this course? Your goal (in this course) is to build games! Should AAA games be your focus? You should focus on indie games! Enter a competition for indie developers and win it!

9 Indie is an Attitude!

10

11 Videogame Industry Today (US) 11 mous ction s and g as es are unks game orms view rate earch try we e and date Total games spend 2010 US $ 24,700,000,000-2% (vs 09) Newzoo 2010 Definitions / scope

12 Limbo

13 Super Meat Boy

14 vvvvvv

15 World of Goo

16 Anomaly Warzone

17 Prior

18 Course Organization

19 What happened last year?

20 Awards and Coverage 20 Weople won the Italian Microsoft Image Cup A Pixel Escape was one of the 20 finalists of the Microsoft 2011 Dream.Build.Play Xenophonic has signed to be commercially distributed on ipad and iphone TV Coverage RAI3 has two specials about our students ClassTV-MSNBC hosted a special with Weople and Viva Piranha team leaders Game Related Magazine & Blogs Indievault Focus Junior Giochi per il Mio Computer The Game Machine Game Village Weople appeared in 10+ online newspapers A Pixel Escape was mentioned in 10+ Corriere della Sera

21 Course Structure and Evaluation 50 hours of lectures and seminars about videogame design and development Basic introduction to game programming using Unity & XNA, some in-depth lecture, the rest is up to you Evaluation based on a team project consisting in the development of a demo computer game

22 How good should the project be? You should aim at competing in the student showcase of one of game competitions You should also try to develop better games than those developed by the past students J

23

24

25

26

27 complete list of trailers from previous edition of the course

28

29

30

31

32

33 Course Project Structured in five deliverables: concept, specification & storyboard, prototype, beta and final Each deliverable has a strict deadline Overall, the project cannot take more than four months

34 Our goal is to create a unique experience for students attending classes while doing the project We asked several people from game big, small, tiny, companies to be involved in the evaluation They will be have access to all your deliverable, they will be involved in the evaluation process Gives great visibility to your work! Past year students received coverage from TV, Radio, Newspapers, Blogs, etc.

35 Course Timeline Game Design Game Development Unity Game Intelligence Advanced Game Development Game Concept Specification Document and Storyboard First Prototype Demo Prototype Final Deliverable Demoed at Course Event

36 You can still do the project outside the course Contact the course coordinator who will provide a basic concept for the game Then, just meet the deadlines!

37 Which Development Tools? There are several options and we usually let students choose whatever they prefer We suggest Unity, it is free and multiplatform PC, OSX, IOS, flash, Android) XNA is also very good, it is free and can develop for Windows, Xbox, Windows Phone UDK is good, it is becoming multiplatform

38 What After the Course? Next semester, you can enroll in the course Online Game Design taught by Dario Maggiorini and Laura Ripamonti at the Universita di Milano Data Mining and Text Mining (analysis of players behavior) You can also consider doing your thesis with us! (Car Racing, Starcraft, FPS, etc.)

39 Teams & Grades

40 Team Building Each team should consist of five people Each students attending classes will have to propose a one-page game concept, describing in simple words the underlying idea Students, instructors, invited speakers will vote for the best game concepts The students who proposed the best concepts will build up their teams

41 Grading 41 The final grade is the sum of 5 grades obtained for each deliverable (game concept, design document, prototype, beta and final releases) Game proposal: 3 points assigned by the instructors Design document: 3 points assigned by the instructors Prototype: 6 points assigned by voting (2/3 students + 1/3 instructors) Beta Release: 18 points assigned by voting (2/3 students + 1/3 instructors) Final Release: 3 points assigned by voting (2/3 students + 1/3 guests and instructors)

42 42 Course Outline

43 Course Instructors 43 Pier Luca Lanzi (coordinator) Daniele Loiacono Luigi Cardamone Invited guests Spartaco Albertarelli (game design) Roberto Mangiafico and Clara Parona (design and development) Mixel Giuseppe Maggiore, Microsoft (XNA) Marco Mazzaglia, Milestone (design & development)

44 Course Outline 44 A brief history of videogames and current trends The structure of games (the designer view) The structure of games (the developer view) Game development tools Introduction to Unity Game Intelligence Advanced Game Development Introduction to videogame development

45 Course Bibliography 45 Main Texts Tracy Fullerton. Game Design Workshop, Second Edition. Morgan Kaufmann Will Goldstone. Unity Game Development Essentials. Packt Publishing Additional material Course transparencies Pointer to papers, chapters, videos, software, etc.

46 Indie Games Must-Play 46 Super Crate Box SpaceChem Super Meat Boy Continuity playcontinuity.html Braid Bit Trip Beat bittripbeat/ World of Goo Fotonica Osmos vvvvvvv Canabalt Fract Frozen Synapse Revenge of Titans BOH Minecraft Limbo

47 Your Homework? 47 Install STEAM on your computer STEAM is a digital distribution, digital rights management, used to distribute games and related media online, from small independent developers to larger software houses. Install MAME (mamedev.org) and the Super Nintendo Emulator Then, play, play, play, play

48 Readings 48 Chapter two of the textbook Chapter one of the book The Design of Everyday Things