"How does one learn game programming?" asked Plato.
"By making games," responded Socrates.
This semester, we are the technical team for KidSmart Productions, and we are responsible for implementing their design for an educational video game, The Underground Railroad in The Ohio River Valley. The game is scheduled to ship at the end of the calendar year, and constraints imposed by the funding body permits no extensions.
The first week of the semester constitutes an orientation and training period for prospective team members. Those who choose to remain at the end of the week will enter into fourteen weeks of production, during which time we will follo industrial best practices of game development.
You are obligated to give nine hours of attention per week to the project. Whether or not this equates to nine clock hours depends on your capacity for minimizing distraction. Corresponding to this obligation, there will be no artificial assessments: no exams, no quizzes, no essays. There is only the project. We are a game development studio, and this is what we do.
This colloquium is part of a two-semester immersive learning course. Concurrent with our efforts on this project, Dr. Gestwicki and his colleague, history professor Dr. Ronald Morris—who is director of KidSmart Productions—are teaching a colloquium on game design. That group is working in collaboration with the Indiana State Museum, and their efforts will result in a design specification for a digital game to be produced in the Spring semester. The Spring team will be recruited from this team and the game design class. More details will be shared about this opportunity as the semester progresses.
You do not need to acquire any particular books to be part of the team. Please note that there are many game programming books at Bracken Library.
You will need Unity 3.5, which is the development environment we will use. Note that the release of Unity 4 is imminent, so you can purchase Unity 4 and have access to 3.5 immediately. It is recommended to purchase a student license from Studica. If you choose to purchase a commercial license, be sure that you also purchase the Team License, which is required for our project; it is included at no additional cost with the academic license.
| Aug. 20–Aug. 24 | Training and Orientation |
| Monday, Aug. 27 | Sprint 1 Planning Meeting |
| Friday, Sept. 7 | Sprint 1 Review and Retrospective |
| Monday, Sept. 10 | Sprint 2 Planning Meeting |
| Friday, Sept. 21 | Sprint 2 Review and Retrospective |
| Monday, Sept. 24 | Sprint 3 Planning Meeting |
| Friday, Oct. 5 | Sprint 3 Review and Retrospective |
| Monday, Oct. 8 | Sprint 4 Planning Meeting |
| Wednesday, Oct. 17 | Sprint 4 Review and Retrospective |
| Friday, Oct. 19 | TBD |
| Monday, Oct. 22 | Fall break—no meeting |
| Wednesday, Oct. 24 | Sprint 5 Planning Meeting |
| Friday, Nov. 2 | Sprint 5 Review and Retrospective |
| Monday, Nov. 5 | Sprint 6 Planning Meeting |
| Monday, Nov. 19 | Sprint 6 Review and Retrospective |
| Nov. 21–Nov. 23 | Thanksgiving break—no meetings |
| Monday, Nov. 26 | Sprint 7 Planning Meeting |
| Monday, Dec. 10 | Sprint 7 Review and Retrospective |
| Friday, Dec. 14, 7:30AM | Semester retrospective |
In accordance with university regulations, we will meet during our final exam slot, which is Friday, December 14, at 7:30AM.
Each team member will meet with me for a performance review at least twice during production: once at mid-semester and once at the end of the semester. Performance review meetings may also be held at the request of the technical director or team member.
Our team management process is designed for small teams of engaged individuals. You will be responsible for following this process: committing to tasks, tracking your progress, improving your skills, complying with team conventions, and assisting your teammates. These will all be taken into account in your performance evaluation.
The university requires that you are assigned a letter grade because you are earning credit in CS315 or CS515. This grade will be assigned using the conventional semantic mapping: A is Excellent, B is Very Good, C is Average, and D is Poor, with F corresponding to no credit earned. Students in CS515 will be held to a higher level of expectation.
We will be using Google Docs and other connected technologies to coordinate community activity. If you do not already have a Google account, you will need to create one. Using two-step verification is strongly recommended.
The instructor may access email through services not affiliated with the University. Please note that such messages necessarily pass through the campus firewall in an unencrypted format, and they may be stored on servers not owned or managed by Ball State University. It is therefore advisable to restrict confidential information to office hours or appointments.
Students and faculty are bound by the Student Academic Ethics Policy of the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities.
It behooves you to be aware of fundamentals of copyright law and the university's intellectual property policies for student-created work.
If you need adaptations or accomodations because of a disability, if you have emergency medical information to share with the instructor, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment as soon as possible.