The video game industry is quickly becoming 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. The course will culminate with a significant development project focussed on the design of an innovative video game and its proof of concept through prototyping.
| Lecture Hours: | 1:30 - 3:30pm, Tuesdays, MC 320 |
| 2:30 - 3:30pm, Thursdays, MC 320 |
| Prerequisites: | CS 307a/b/y (for CS483b) or enrolment in a graduate Computer Science program (for CS641b). |
| Antirequisites: | CS 437b if taken in Winter 2003, 2004 or 2005 |
Note: Unless you have either the requisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enroll in it, you will 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: | 3:30 - 4:30pm, Tuesdays |
| 3:30 - 4:30pm, Thursdays | |
| Or by appointment. | |
| E-Mail: | katchab@csd.uwo.ca |
| Phone: | UWO extension 84059 |
One book is required for this course, and may be available for purchase from the University Bookstore or 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 and PDF formats 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/CS483b or http://www.csd.uwo.ca/courses/CS641b. Lecture notes, project information, and class information will be posted on this website. You are responsible for reading this information frequently.
Each student will have access to an account provided by the Computer Science Department on either the senior undergraduate computing facility, GAUL, or on the Research Network, or both. In accepting the account(s), 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 whole class, or to students individually. E-mail will be sent to the UWO e-mail address assigned to students 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, you should note that e-mail at ITS (your UWO account) and other e-mail providers such as hotmail.com or yahoo.com may have quotas or limits on the amount of space they can use. If you let your e-mail accumulate there, your mailbox may fill up and you may lose important e-mail from your instructors. Losing e-mail that you have forwarded to an alternative e-mail address is not an excuse for not knowing about the information that was sent.
Grades will be based on a group project worth 55%, a midterm exam worth 15% and a final exam worth 30%. The group project will be split into separate deliverables including a proposal (5%), design document (15%), demo (15%), and final implementation (15%). Minutes collected from weekly meetings with a TA assigned to your project will be worth 5% of your mark.
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. Midterm exam marks will be posted within 2 weeks of the exam at the latest. If we are unable to comply with our intended return dates, revised dates will be posted on the course website.
| Midterm: | Saturday February 11, 2007, 2:00 - 4:00pm, SSC 3028 |
| Final: | 3 hours during the April exam period |
There will be no makeup midterm exam, except for students requesting a special midterm exam for religious reasons. These students must have notified the course instructor and filed documentation with their Dean's office at least 2 weeks prior to the midterm exam.
If you miss the midterm exam for any other reason, and present valid documentation to the Dean's office, your final exam mark will be reweighted to include the weight of the midterm exam. You must notify the course instructor within a week of the missed midterm exam, and documentation must be received by your Dean's office within 2 weeks of the missed exam.
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 either exam. No calculators, cell phones, or other electronic devices will be permitted either.
| Group Project Proposal: | 5% (light) | Project assigned January 8, 2007 | Due January 22, 2007 |
| Group Project Design Document: | 15% (medium) | Due Feburary 19, 2007 | |
| Group Project Demo: | 15% (medium) | Due March 12, 2007 | |
| Group Project Implementation: | 15% (heavy) | Due April 12, 2007 | |
| Group Project Meeting Minutes: | 5% (light) | Due April 12, 2007 |
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.
All projects are a group effort, but each group is 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 enrolment. The selection of penalty to be applied is up to the appropriate Chair, with consultation of the instructor. Typically, for the student's first offence, the item in question will be given a mark of zero with an additional penalty equal to the weight of the item 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.