The video game industry is a very significant and important software industry, both for entertainment and serious applications. Building a high quality game is a surprisingly difficult and challenging process; exploitation of the latest technologies does not necessarily lead to success. In the end, much of a game's success (or failure) is dictated by its design. In other words, does the game offer engaging, immersive, and rewarding gameplay to the player, resulting in an overall satisfactory experience?
This course provides an in-depth examination of video game design and best practices to study the issues and challenges that arise when developing games for both entertainment and serious applications. Topics include: the history of video games; game development teams, processes, and management; principles of game design, game play, and balance; game genres and genre-specific design issues; plot, story, and level design; technical design issues with respect to foundations from computing (graphics, artificial intelligence, networking, software engineering, and so on), and elsewhere (physics, anatomy, language studies, and so on); ethical issues in video games and the gaming industry; and the future of gaming.
| Lecture Hours: | 1:30 - 3:30pm, Tuesdays, KB-K203 |
| 2:30 - 3:30pm, Thursdays, KB-K203 |
| Prerequisites: | CS 3307a/b/y (for CS4483b) or enrolment in a graduate Computer Science program (for CS9541b). |
| Antirequisites: | CS 437b if taken in Winter 2003, 2004 or 2005, CS 483b if taken in Winter 2006 or 2007 |
Note: Unless you have either the prerequisites for this
course or written special permission from your Dean to enrol in it,
you may be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your
record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no
adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a
course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.
| Instructor: | Michael J. Katchabaw |
| Office: | MC 28H |
| Office Hours: | 1:30 - 2:30pm, Wednesdays |
| 1:30 - 2:30pm, Thursdays | |
| Or by appointment. | |
| E-Mail: | katchab@csd.uwo.ca |
| Phone: | UWO extension 84059 |
Two books are recommended for this course, and may be available for purchase from the University Bookstore or other sources, such as the Used Book Store:
The course will address as many of the following topics as time will allow:
Course lecture notes will be made available in PowerPoint format on the course website on a weekly basis, as they are developed. They are provided as a courtesy by the course instructor. Possessing (and even reading) these notes is not a suitable substitute for attending lectures.
The course website is accessible at either http://www.csd.uwo.ca/courses/CS4483b or http://www.csd.uwo.ca/courses/CS9541b. Lecture notes, project information, and class information will be posted on this website. You are responsible for reading this information frequently.
Each student will be given an account on the Computer Science Department senior undergraduate computing facility, GAUL. In accepting the GAUL account, a student agrees to abide by the department's Rules of Ethical Conduct.
Note: After-hours access to certain Computer Science lab rooms is by student card. If a student card is lost, a replacement card will no longer open these lab rooms, and the student must bring the new card to the I/O counter. Likewise, if a student card ceases to provide access where it should, it should be brought the I/O counter as well. There, the operator will swipe the card, record the complaint and send the information to the Systems Group who will send notice when they have fixed the problem.
We will occasionally need to send e-mail messages to the class, or to students individually. E-Mail will be sent to the UWO e-mail address as assigned to you by Information Technology Services (ITS), i.e. your e-mail address @uwo.ca. It is each student's responsibility to read this e-mail on a frequent and regular basis, or to have it forwarded to an alternative e-mail address if preferred. See the ITS website for directions on forwarding e-mail.
However, note that e-mail at ITS (your UWO account) and other e-mail providers may have quotas or limits on the amount of space they dedicate to each account. Unchecked e-mail may accumulate beyond those limits and you may be unable to retrieve important messages from your instructors. Losing e-mail is not an acceptable excuse for not knowing about the information that was sent.
Also note that ITS and other e-mail providers employ spam filters which may inadvertantly classify valid course e-mail as spam. Please ensure that you have configured your spam filters to allow e-mail from your instructor through to avoid missing important messages.
Grades will be based on project work worth 70% and a final exam worth 30%. Project work will be split into separate deliverables including three pitches (each worth 10%), design documentation (15%), and a game demo (25%).
To be eligible to receive a passing grade in the course, your mark on the final exam must be at least 40%, and your average on the project components must be at least 40%. Otherwise, the maximum overall mark you can receive is 45%. To be eligible to receive a grade of C or higher, your mark on the final exam must be at least 50%, and your weighted average on the project components must be at least 50%. Otherwise, the maximum overall mark you can receive is 58%.
Every effort will be made to have project components marked and handed back within 3 weeks of the handin date, preferably sooner. If we are unable to comply with our intended return dates, revised dates will be posted on the course website.
If you are unable to meet a course requirement due to illness or other serious circumstances, you must provide valid medical or other supporting documentation to your Dean's office as soon as possible and contact your instructor immediately. It is the student's responsibility to make alternative arrangements with their instructor once the accommodation has been approved and the instructor has been informed. In the event of a missed final exam, a "Recommendation of Special Examination" form must be obtained from the Dean's Office immediately. For further information please see: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/medical.pdf.
A student requiring academic accommodation due to illness should use the Student Medical Certificate when visiting an off-campus medical facility or request a Record's Release Form (located in the Dean's Office) for visits to Student Health Services. The form can be found here: https://studentservices.uwo.ca/secure/medical_document.pdf.
| Final: | 3 hours during the April exam period |
As an important note, computer-marked multiple-choice tests and/or exams may be subject to submission for similarity review by software that will check for unusual coincidences in answer patterns that may indicate cheating. Furthermore, there will be no cheat sheets, books, or other reference materials allowed for the exam. No calculators, cell phones, or other electronic devices will be permitted either.
| Individual Pitch #1: | 10% (light) | Assigned January 17, 2012 | Due January 23, 2012 |
| Individual Pitch #2: | 10% (light) | Assigned January 24, 2012 | Due January 30, 2012 |
| Individual Pitch #3: | 10% (light) | Assigned January 31, 2012 | Due Febuary 6, 2012 |
| Group Design Documentation: | 15% (medium) | Assigned February 7, 2012 | Due March 12, 2012 |
| Group Game Demo: | 25% (heavy) | Assigned February 7, 2012 | Due April 11, 2012 |
If, for any reason, the project schedule given above cannot be adhered to, the project marks will be pro-rated. (The 5 project components are worth 70% of the overall mark for the course. If a project component has to be canceled for any reason, the remaining project component weights will be prorated to add up to 70%.)
Submission
It is your responsibility to keep up-to-date backups of project disk files in case of system crashes or inadvertently erased files. Retain disk copies of all material handed in, as well as the actual graded version, to guard against the possibility of lost projects or errors in recording marks. It is not safe to discard these materials until you are satisfied that your final mark for the course has been computed properly.
Scholastic offences are taken seriously and students are directed to read the appropriate policy, specifically, the definition of what constitutes a Scholastic Offence, at the following Web site: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/scholoff.pdf.
Plagiarism: Students must write their essays and assignments in their own words. Whenever students take an idea, or a passage from another author, they must acknowledge their debt both by using quotation marks where appropriate and by proper referencing such as footnotes or citations. Plagiarism is a major academic offence.
Projects are either individual or group efforts, with each group expected to act individually. You may discuss approaches to problems among yourselves; however, the actual details of the work must be an individual effort. Incidents that are judged to be the result of academic dishonesty will be reported to either the Undergraduate Chair or the Graduate Chair depending on your enrollment. The selection of penalty to be applied is up to the appropriate Chair, with consultation of the instructor.
The standard departmental penalty for assignments that are judged to be the result of academic dishonesty is, for the student's first offence, a mark of zero for the assignment, with an additional penalty equal to the weight of the assignment also being applied. You are responsible for reading and respecting the Faculty of Graduate Studies Regulations on Scholastic Offences, if you are taking this course as a graduate student, or the Computer Science Department's policy on Scholastic Offences, if you are an undergraduate student. All students must follow the Department's Rules of Ethical Conduct.
While the group project is expected to be a team effort, you must still follow these rules and avoid plagiarism when it comes to using other people's code and so on in the project. While the use of other code in your project is encouraged, you must clearly identify all such code in your project documentation. Failure to do so will be considered a scholastic offence.
The University of Western Ontario uses software for plagiarism checking. Students may be required to submit their written work and programs in electronic form for plagiarism checking.
All required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to the commercial plagiarism detection software under license to the University for detection of plagiarism. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently between The University of Western Ontario and Turnitin.com (http://www.turnitin.com/).
The role of tutoring is to help students understand course material. Tutors should not write assignments or take-home tests for the students who hire them. Having employed the same tutor as another student is not a legitimate defense against an accusation of collusion, should two students hand in assignments judged similar beyond the possibility of coincidence.