http://gamesummerschool.supercoolschool.com/classes/3331

If you are interested in debating the homework, and aren’t part of the private group, or are having problems accessing the supercoolschool materials – there is a known problem with errors on attempting to sign up or request to join particular class sessions – then you can post your homework submissions here as comments.

is available here:

http://gamesummerschool.supercoolschool.com/classes/3331

Lecture 2: Why What How of Game Programming?

is available here:

http://gamesummerschool.supercoolschool.com/classes/3333

Future classes for the next 12 weeks will be posted nearer the time.

http://gamesummerschool.supercoolschool.com/

or create a new account:

http://gamesummerschool.supercoolschool.com/session/new

Then could you click on the test class and request to join. Once I know how many and who are wanting to take part, I can populate the first proper class, which will be put up tomorrow. Don’t worry if you miss this, as you can still request to join a class and see the resources and video afterwards.

As part of addressing issues related to the switch over to a newly validated scheme at the University of Wales, Newport, in late 2010, and the fact that, unfortunately due to regulations , this will not be rolled out to existing students, I proposed a 10 week Summer School looking at providing game programming training materials to interested participants. This blog is the public face of that crazy idea, and will provide you with further details of the planned activities over the next 3 months.

The aim of these sessions will be essentially practical, with a couple of parallel strands depending on what software/hardware students have access to in the next few weeks. This won’t be assessed in the usual way, and won’t be accredited. However, committed involvement will be necessary; I am going to go at the fastest pace possible, but ALL materials will be available for participants to study at their own rate.

The platforms for development will be variously NES assembly, Game Maker and XNA, with the possibility of 3D versions of some of these, depending on my progress over the 10 weeks. I will also be blogging progress with the iPhone, PSP and PS3 SDKs for the same games, subject to various NDAs. This will clearly be a lot to develop and to follow, but the aim of this Summer School is to cover the following key elements:

1) Game data requirements

2) Game visualisation

3) Player expectations and affordance

4) Player interaction

5) Game response (inc A.I.)

My personal take is on emphasising player interaction experience and how that maps to hardware; visualisation of game events and actions (e.g. how does Mario jump so well on an 8 bit NES?); and data representation. All of which map to hardware and software constraints, with my personal focus at the Retro end for staggered and sustainable development, rather than jumping in at the CryEngine level to make a no-necked space marine clone.

I like the 4 Understanding Games Flash Experiments (see  One, Two, Three and Four) Flash experiments as a good example of the kind of dialogue I would expect with the students, regarding the idea of theory, practice then extending, with parallel development of several key game types, such as platformer, puzzle game, etc, to weave in the hardware and software and end user considerations. For example, imagine the character – we will call him Ian, which just happens to be my brother’s name – asks to be moved to a ledge (what to press and why is moot), then tells the player/developer what button JUMP is and asks what will happen next… Then the background to the physics, or the look up table in relation to NES or earlier hardware, is shown and experimented with… Finally, the template code is opened up for the student to play with different types of jumping… Oh, but wait! How does the game know that I can stand on something…? Which leads into collision boxes, etc.

There will be an invite only forum, video resource and teaching materials web site, as well as a public blog (this thing what you are reading!) describing development of the example games. Participants will be encouraged to experiment and share their own games. However, the planned example games (depending on student interest) will be as follows:

PING: A 2D simulation/platformer, based on my own re-envisaging of PONG; there are two options here: one is PONG (top down) but with sonar/radar so that players “ping” to see the location of the ball and their opponent’s bat; the other is a side view version of the game where the “bat” can move left and right and jump to hit the ball, which will show proper physics, moving in arcs dependent on the speed it is hit.

TetraSaw: A 2D puzzle game, based on a current first year student’s retro jigsaw puzzle concept. The main element here is good collision handling and data representation of the board.

“2->-><-1″ (aka two steps forward and one step back): A 2D board game, based on two final year students concept for a board game. The main focus here will be on representing legal moves and the possibility of A.I. play.

Who can be involved? Well, this is all rather new and experimental and is REALLY intended to benefit Newport students, who may feel left out of updated teaching content as we move from one degree scheme to another. However, if you are interested in being involved beyond this FREE portal to progress, please email me at mike.reddy@newport.ac.uk