This course teaches students the fundamentals of digital game design with an emphasis on team-based development. In this course students will produce a significant game using techniques and principles derived from established state-of-the-art industry practices. Topics include an examination of game design theories, programming architectures, audio-visual design and game production.

• Instructor: Stephen Brooks
• Lecture Time:
  • Tuesdays & Thursdays 1:05pm - 2:25pm
  • LSC-COMMON AREA C240
• Help in the Learning Center (with TA):
  • Tuesdays, 3:00pm - 4:00pm
  • Thursdays, 3:00pm – 4:00pm
• TA Office Hours Online on Brightspace (with TA):
  • Friday, 9:30am - 10:30am
• Professor office hours:
  • Friday, 2pm - 3pm

General Game Design & Development in Unity
• Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C#

Game Design Only
• Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games
• The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses
• Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design

Game Development in Unity Only
• Unity Cookbook

• Explain the origins of modern digital games.
• Discuss the demographics and sociology of games and online communities.
• Produce documentation for a game design.
• Design an appropriate interface for a given game genre.
• Design game levels and challenge hierarchies.
• Discuss the role of diegetic and non-diegetic game elements
• Construct and iterate through a paper based simulation.
• Develop a multi-level game as part of a team.
• Script object and character interactions.
• Construct and program in-game particle systems.
• Develop and integrate character animations.
• Setup and script physics interactions.
• Test and debug an interactive game.

Hardware: A windows machine with a decent graphics card. Software: Unity 3D, Google SketchUp, GIMP, MS Visual Studio.

• 30% Programming Assignment (a minimum grade of C is required)
• 10% Project Proposal
• 10% Project Progress Report
• 50% Final Project Report, Demo and Presentation (see syllabus for more details)

All work you submit must be your own. It is fine to discuss problems, but when it comes time to submit solutions, the materials you hand in must be done individually, by yourself. Any materials referenced must be attributed. All suspected instances of academic dishonesty must be reported to the Senate Discipline Committee. In particular, you should never show another student code that you have written for an assignment in this course, nor should you write code for another student to use in his/her assignment. Note that this specifically prohibits working with other students when writing the code for your assignments. As I said above, it is fine to discuss problems, but the code you submit must be your own, written by you alone. For further information regarding academic honesty at Dalhousie, please see the University plagiarism website.

Also note that all assignments and projects will be checked for plagiarism using automated software.

Late assignments will be penalized 5% per day (or part thereof). You may not receive credit for work that is more than 3 days late. The project CANNOT BE HANDED IN LATE (no exceptions).