This special-topics course introduces students to the process of creating computer games in a multidisciplinary team setting, covering design, programming, asset creation, and testing. The course is designed to provide students with an experience similar to working in a game studio, and would be of interest to anyone looking to enter the games industry, or wanting to know how developing games can become research for graduate school, or just exploring their options.
Course material website: https://d2l.ucalgary.ca/
Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-3:15pm.
No tutorials. Lecture attendance is required for in-class game creation activities. Come to class, make games and have fun, and earn points.
SENG 300.
Large-scale collaboration is required in this course, which mimics a real-life game studio where many programmers, designers, and artists work together.
Students will be divided into four Houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. Students in each House will work together in game creation activities. When a student completes an activity, they will earn points both for themselves and for their House. At the end of the semester, each student's individual points determine their own grades, but students in the House with the highest average points will receive extra bonuses.
No exams (no midterms or finals or tests). Grading is based on in-class activities (roughly 50%), individual and team-based game development projects (roughly 50%). It is designed to be low stress, but to get good grades, students need to participate in activities in class.
Contact an advisor in the Undergraduate Science Centre. An advisor can enroll you and you do not need permission from me.
CPSC 585 is a much more advanced course in game programming, where students are required to know computer graphics programming (OpenGL) to be able to create a game from scratch. CPSC 399.8 is an introductory course where students will use existing game engines and do not need to know graphics. Only basic programming knowledge is needed.
Yes. Game engines will be used throughout the course. Unreal engine is used and potentially other game engines.
No. There will be lectures introducing all students to Unreal and programming in Unreal. No prior knowledge is necessary.
Only basic programming knowledge (Python and Java classes and objects from your first year) is necessary. Unreal uses its own language called Blueprint which we will discuss in lecture.
Not sure yet. Special-topics courses (399) are offered based on interest. There are different topics in 399, noted by its topic number. For example, 399.8 is Game Development. If there are not enough interests from students on a topic, it may not be offered again.
CPSC 586: Game AI, CPSC 453: Computer Graphics, CPSC 585: (Advanced) Game Programming, CPSC 587: Computer Animation.
More questions? Feel free to email me (richard.zhao1 at ucalgary.ca).