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Game Design In a College Course ~ A Survey ~

Game Design In a College Course ~ A Survey ~. Presented by: Larry Cummins. With Appreciation to My Advisor: Dr. Arturo I Concepcion. Original Intent. GOAL : To survey information to see what different universities are currently doing in Game Design and Game Programming

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Game Design In a College Course ~ A Survey ~

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  1. Game Design In a College Course~ A Survey ~ Presented by: Larry Cummins With Appreciation to My Advisor: Dr. Arturo I Concepcion

  2. Original Intent GOAL: To survey information to see what different universities are currently doing in Game Design and Game Programming 1) Game Design & Development (GD&D) - play goals - how it is played - aspects that make it fun - organizational phases of development - submittal & feedback process - evolution of the game in this process 2) Game Programming - how to build a game - especially using XNA - software development process - implementation

  3. Investigated Sources CONFERENCES: • Computer Games, Multimedia and Allied Technology Conference 2009, Singapore http://www.aigamesnetwork.org/main:events:cgat • E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo, Los Angeles www.e3expo.com • The Game Developers Conference Austin, 2009 http://www.gdcaustin.com/ • Game Developers Conference Europe, 2009 http://www.gdceurope.com/ • The Game Developers Conference 2009, San Francisco https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=C&V=1&SB=4 • Gamescom 2009, Germany http://www.gamescom-cologne.com/ • The International Consumer Electronics Games Innovations Conference 2009, London [IEEE Consumer Electronics Society] http://ice-gic.ieee-cesoc.org/ • The L.A. Games Conference 2009, Los Angeles http://www.lagamesconference.com/ • The New York Games Conference 2009, New York http://www.nygamesconference.com/ • Nordic Game Conference 2009, SWEDEN www.nordicgame.com/ • Tokyo Game Show 2009, Tokyo http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/english/ PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS: • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - IEEE Xplore http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/guesthome.jsp SOURCES FOR THIS PRESENTATION: • 3rd International Conference on Game Development in Computer Science Education, 2008, Miami http://www.microsoft4me.com/faculty/events/adgd2008/ • 4th International Conference On The Foundations Of Digital Games, 2009, Orlando http://www.fdg2009.org/ • The ACM Digital Library Association for Computing Machinery http://portal.acm.org/dl.cfm?coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=65824273&CFTOKEN=55429939

  4. An Additional Intent • These papers reiterate the fact that there has been a significant drop in Computer Science (CS) student enrollment and retention for most of this decade • They also consider that CS and Information Technology (IT) has a typical imbalanced population of only 5 - 6% women • For a few years CS departments have used Game Design (GD) to attract more students • This became another aspect of my research into the use of Game Design in a College Course

  5. From Intent to Present With refined goals this presentation will focus on six classroom experiences and will provides some insight to answer these questions: 1) A Course in Game Design & Development (GD&D) - What are characteristics of the course? - Can Game Design incorporate play to make it fun? - What attracts students to a course in Game Design? - How successful are courses in attracting and retaining students? - How can the male-dominated majors become more gender balanced? 2) The Process of Game Programming - What software and hardware are being used? - What are phases of development for Game Design?

  6. Six Experiences Examined • RIT Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, NY • UV University of Victoria, British Columbia • UCSC University of California, Santa Cruz, CA • GT & SCAD Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta, GA • DWC Daniel Webster College, Nashua, NH • DPU DePaul University, Chicago, IL

  7. Demographics

  8. Design Environments

  9. RIT – The Attraction GD&D Majors • Advantage: high interest in expressing creativity in GD&D compared to other majors • Disadvantage: low interest in problem solving

  10. RIT – Lessons • Wii remote - the physical manipulation is very attractive to students • Game Design included about 10% women, twice the average for CS & IT Retention: - CS 56% (1st year) - GD&D 93% Results of a subsequent C++ course: - GD&D 48% As 25% Bs - CS 25% As 29% Bs • GD&D students believe: 1) career would be long hours 2) it’s a hard industry to enter Result: none have changed to the RIT GD&D major

  11. UV – The Waterfall Lifecycle in the Context of Game Design

  12. UV - Conceptualization Phase Define formal elements: objectives, rules, resourcesDefine dramatic elements: story, characters, challengeDeliverables: - Project Schedule: with milestones equivalent to deliverables - Specification Sketch: explains game conceptinterface mock-ups game controlsflow of game-play - Design Document - Game State Diagram: to visualize the Architectural Design

  13. UV - Prototype Phase Workload: team determined distribution of work between membersDeliverables: - Alpha version minimum requirements: 1) artwork for sprites 2) defined game objects 3) system behaviors (e.g. game structure) 4) executed basic events (e.g. start game) - Revised Design Document - Users Guide

  14. UV - Playtesting Phase “…one of the most critical phases of Game Design…”Feedback: test others’ games and give them feedback provide input for iterative design loop re-evaluate requirements, specifications and design Incorporate changes from feedback receivedDeliverables: - Beta Version Executable - Final Design Documentation - Final User Guide

  15. UV - Lessons • Game Maker good for: 1) short learning curve, 2) no programming experience required, 3) rapid prototyping Survey results for interests in: • Game Design: decreased 70% CS degree: decreased 20% • Further programming: 25% increased, 40% decreased • More CS courses: 20% reduced, 15% increased interest, 67% non-majors not likely to take more CS courses Possible causes: • Those with little programming bogged down in technical details and couldn’t work on design • Those with programming experience did well with implementation but lacked conceptualization Suggestion: • Equal emphasis on conceptualization and implementation “Students appeared to have reached the conclusion that the reward-to-work ratio for game development is not one-to-one.”

  16. UCSC – Demographics - Female population similar to Engineering 15 - 20% - Largest population of courses examined

  17. UCSC – Class Lessons • Students demo games they like at the beginning of class engaging, fewer missed classes, late arrivals are less disruptive • Taught: game elements, genre overview, challenge & conflict, level design, history of games, narrative, games & culture • Original non-computer-based game taught students rules and limitations - an unusually high percentage of drinking games were designed; suggest discouraging them [due to iterative testing requirement?] - games based on cards were remakes of existing games • 6 best demoed to a panel from the computer games industry - top 4 got prizes, very motivating to polish their games

  18. UCSC – Results • Each year this course is taught 1-3 students declare GD as their major • Game design can be done in a large classroom aimed at freshmen & sophomores • It is effective in attracting non-engineering students • Programming experience is not necessary and not a deterrent to create working computer games

  19. GT & SCAD – Class Process • Special Challenges: 1) inter-institutional class & 2) designing for a new technology handheld device • 3-5 students per team including 1 or 2 SCAD students • Assignments required a playable prototype with demo video - 1 week of ideas & concepts - 1-2 weeks for feedback and implementation - 1 week presentation, tweaks & fixes • Groups analyzed formal aspects (rules, mechanics, genre,…) - what was compelling or effective - how that could be used in an AR game - BUT done too much and students start mimicking existing games

  20. GT & SCAD – Game Design Process • Goal: create an AR board game, since a board game depends on game pieces and a board which correlates to markers and multi-marker boards in AR • The AR physical interactions: - must be tested as soon as possible (not like 1st person shooter controls or 2D platformer controls) - must be allowed to evolve with the game which makes the game in constant prototype • Beginning of first 2 prototyping cycles were spent playing and analyzing board games

  21. GT & SCAD – Results • Prototyping - Prototype live AR interactions early result is more successful - Too much paper prototyping caused groups to miss deadlines - Rapid prototyping: more time for trying ideas, failing and fixing Device Limitations • Had to use a low-polygon count model to ensure a frame rate that made their games playable • Limited 256x256 texture size was a challenge for some but restricting for others • Inter-institution experience: SCAD students didn’t feel that they had technical knowledge or “owned” their projects

  22. DWC – Curriculum Software Freshman: write complex C#.net games Sophomore: Gaming Majors and some CS use XNA to develop multi-player gaming systems Senior: if pursuing career in game industry encouraged to develop entire game engine in C++

  23. DWC – Curriculum Process • 1st year - given an executable and specifications score is based on sophistication of code makes learning faster and the project is more game-like in itself - teams create a casino-oriented gaming system individuals make their own prototype of one of the casino games game integration, documentation, Q&A, final testing • 2nd year: game theme in assembly on 16-bit processor • 3rd year: broad CS themes, Unix/Linux, web, networking, programming • 4th year: teams choose their tools, many select C# .NET Knowing C# .NET and XNA they will be ready for any 3D development of games, commercial training or defense

  24. DWC - Results • Adding game development in the freshman year CS increased enrollment 240% due to: - students are attracted to games - most DWC CS majors want to pursue a careerin GD industry • Game focus in CS provides: complexity, range of CS challenges, software engineering, teamwork, basis for cross-disciplinary knowledge integration like math, physics & logic

  25. DPU - Systems • Hardware: awarded 1 of 5 Microsoft grants that year: provided: - 20 Xbox 360 consoles - 20 Creator’s Club licenses - funds to purchase monitors and - upgrade the game development labs • Software: XNA is used all the way through for students to learn all aspects of console game creation - other courses use C/C++, OpenGL

  26. DPU – Course Schedule

  27. DPU – Class Process • First 7 projects done individually, so students learn all aspects • 8th project option to work in a team up to 4 members • By requiring all students to be familiar with all aspects means more exposure to content pipeline • Understanding the content pipeline: - speeds up design - reduces frustration, improves morale - better represents students’ abilities • Students encouraged to share artwork and code, get extra credit if any is used by another student • Students design game level and asset budgets, like polygon counts, sound size, image map size, & memory use

  28. DPU – Game Design • Start by creating font, icons, 3D model, camera & object paths, animation, sound, programming is deemphasized, goal is a “rail shooter” game • XNA Pipeline is implemented with a visual interface that helps students better understand the process • XNA Game Studio which is the integrated development environment, code is written & debugged in C#

  29. DPU - Results Average Grades • 16 programmers: 86% 9 non-programmers: 79% • 3 CS majors: 86% 16 GD majors: 79% programmers non-programmers • Milestones 79% 74% • Quizzes 80% 71% • Final 91% 88% • Gave NON-TECHS: importance of naming convention at front end and how used at back end, why some rules intrinsic to games • Gave TECHS: glimpse into world of artists FUTURE • Try to minimize programmer vs non-programmer difference in performance • May split into 2 courses: 1) intro skipping some things, making it based more on path-based animation, 2) allow creation of more advanced content

  30. Survey Results Game Design & Development What are characteristics of the course? • GD gives student more freedom to be creative • Individual student games combined to create a suite • Some courses programming experience is not necessary Can Game Design incorporate play to make it fun? • Students find physical interaction attractive, like with the Wii remote • Students had to learn game principles by playing What attracts students to a course in Game Design? • Students are attracted to GD for the creativity • There are cross-discipline aspects that can attract student in Art, Communications, Computer Science, Interactive Media, Music and Writing

  31. Survey Results • How successful are courses in attracting and retaining students? • Higher retention rate and test scores of GD students than CS • 2 experiences had negative results for attracting students to CS • How can the majors become more gender balanced? • More female students ARE attracted to GD than CS or IT (creativity?) • An increase from the typical 5-6% to 10-20 % • Game Programming • What software and hardware are being used? • 2 of the 6 surveyed use XNA and 2 use Game Maker • Others use C# .Net, Java and Studierstube • They design for the PC, Wii remote and Xbox • What are phases of development for Game Design? • One clearly adapted the Waterfall Lifecycle to GD process • Others adapted processes with milestones and deliverables

  32. References Barba, Evan, Yan Xu, Blair Maclntyre, and Tony Tseng. “Lessons from a class on handheld augmented reality game design.” Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games, April 26 - 30, 2009: Session on ICFDG-09 technical papers. 2009. 2-9. [GT & SCAD] Bayliss, Jessica D., and Kevin Bierre. “Game design and development students: who are they?” Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Game development in computer science education, February 28-March 3, 2008. New York:Association for Computing Machinery, 2008. 6-10. [RIT] Goulding, Tom. “Complex game development throughout the college curriculum.” ACMSIGCSE Bulletin40 (2008): 68-71. [DWC] Linhoff, Joe, and Amber Settle. “Teaching game programming using XNA.” Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education, June 30 - July 2, 2008: Session on Games as a motivational tool. New York:Association for Computing Machinery, 2008. 250-254. [DPU] Rankin, Yolanda, Amy Gooch, and Bruce Gooch. “The impact of game design on students' interest in CS” Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Game development in computer science education, February 28-March 3, 2008. New York:Association for Computing Machinery, 2008. 31-35. [UV] Whitehead, Jim. “Introduction to game design in the large classroom.” Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Game development in computer science education, February 28-March 3, 2008. New York:Association for Computing Machinery, 2008. 61-65. [UCSC]

  33. Reference Links GDCSE08-02 RIT Game design and development students: who are they? Bayliss, Jessica D., and Kevin Bierre http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1463673.1463675&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=59445291&CFTOKEN=71978036 GDCSE08-07 UV The impact of game design on students' interest in CS Rankin, Yolanda, Amy Gooch, and Bruce Gooch. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1463673.1463680&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=59445291&CFTOKEN=71978036 GDCSE08-13 UCSC Introduction to game design in the large classroom Whitehead, Jim. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1463673.1463686&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=59445291&CFTOKEN=71978036 FDG 09-01 GT & SCAD Lessons from a class on handheld augmented reality game design Barba, Evan, Yan Xu, Blair Maclntyre, and Tony Tseng. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1536513.1536525&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=58406739&CFTOKEN=38457990 ACM-24 DWC Complex game development throughout the college curriculum Goulding, Tom. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1473195.1473223&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=64248841&CFTOKEN=17112394 ACM-30 DPU Teaching game programming using XNA Linhoff, Joe, and Amber Settle. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1384271.1384338&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=64248841&CFTOKEN=17112394

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