Presentation plan and Mini-project 1

Here is the plan for your presentation and mini-project 1.

Group 1 (Nanisah and Iqzan): Steering Behaviors of Autonomous Characters
Group 2 (Afiqah and Adibah): Interaction with Group of Autonomous Characters
Group 3 (Chiam Mei Ying and Azimah): Big Fast Crows on PS3
Group 4 (Diana and Ali): Autonomous Behaviors for Interactive Vehicle Animations

Click on here to download papers

You are recommended to choose a topic for your mini-project based on the paper you presented and knowledge you have learn in part 1. The mini-project must be done by a software tool, e.g. Blender 3D, and demonstrated in terms of animation, simulation, or interactive computer graphics. You are allowed to re-use whatever you have developed in the semester 1.

Note that you should focus on highlighting the characteristics of games, designers, and players and their relationship when documenting the developed game.

A report 5-10 pages and your product (video of demonstration preferable) must be submitted by 19. March. You are required to give a presentation about your product on the date.

Part 2: Virtual Games (Computer Game)

An short lecture to distinguish virtual games and physical games was conducted.
A brief reminder to essential elements of virtual games in Part 2 was presented.

In part 2, students are requested to prepare presentation for selected papers, and then come up with an idea for their implementation using available software tools such as Blender 3D

Assignment 2: Are you the game designer?

Have you been in the role of game player for any game? Hopefully, your answer is yes!

Suppose that you are the technical manager for the development of such a game, please write a plan for the development process for it.
Your report should be less than 10 pages.

Hints: you can borrow the idea of “knowledge tree” in the book “Arts of Game Design” and make a mindmap for your development process.

Deadline: 5. March.2013

Lecture 12 (the last of Part 1):

We have gone through the following:
- Games transform their player in terms of their characters, habit, hobby, etc
- Designers have certain responsibilities for the games they design. We critically emphasized on ethics as the first element in the priority.
- Each designer has a motivation to come up with a game.

The first part has been completed. The second assignment will be released soon.

Lecture 11: Client, Pitch, and Profit

We discussed on the following topics:
- Your game will probably have a client
- The designer gives a client pitch
- The designer and client want the game to make a profit

Assignment 1: Games for educational purposes

Suppose that you have found a company developing computer games in Brunei. The aim of this company is to focus on games with educational purposes for Brunei children with age 5-10. 

A journalist of the Brunei Times will interview you, as the founder of this company, in the opening ceremony. What can you tell him about the trend of your company, your products and its potential in Brunei market, their impacts to the education development of Brunei children, etc. 

Please write an essay, 4-10 pages, as a summary of your interview. 

Deadline: Monday. 18. 2013

Lecture 10: Teams, documents, playtesting, technology

We came back to the role of the designers to see what they have to concern
- They must work into a team
- They are recommended to write reports of their works in terms documents
- Why is playtesting important?
- Technology, why do we need to concern for game design?

Lecture 9: Players and communities

We moved to the other part where we discussed the player and their communities which are important to provide feedbacks for the game designers.
- Games are not only played by the designer, by many other players too.
- Why and how the players usually form a community of the game?

Lecture 8: the world

The world in a game, what is it? We discussed about

- characters contained in the world

- spaces contained in the world

- the look and feed of a world is defined and expressed by its aesthetics

Lecture 7: Story of a game

We specifically discussed about the story of a game:

- Can we model the experiences of the players by their interest curves?

- Can the story of a game is a part of experiences?

- Is it possible to merge the story and game structure with indirect control?

- Are games and stories embedded into the worlds?

Lecture 6: Players and playing interface

We have learned how the players can play a game. The answer is : interface

- Physical interfaces

- Virtual interfaces 

- Modes

- Information channels

Lecture 5: Game mechanics

We specifically discussed relevances of game mechanics:

- what are elements of game mechanics?

- why do need to keep game mechanics balance?

- Did you see whether the game mechanics support Puzzles?

Lecture 4: Player, player mind

The main concern are
- keep the focus on the players' opinion as the game is made for players
- gain experiences when playing the game, which are feedback for game development and improvement.

Lecture 3: Theme, idea, iteration

We discussed the followings:
- How to get a theme from the four elements of game design
- How to come up an idea for a new game
- How to improve the game through iteration

Lecture 2: Designer, Experiences, and Game

We have gone through three first chapters of the book "The Art of Game Design". We have discussed on the following questions:

- What is game designer?

- What skills should a game designer have? 

- How to create or gain experiences through games

- What are elements of a game?

Lecture 1 (8.Jan): Welcome

Welcome to the SS-5303 Game Design!

This blog was created to post minutes of our lectures, assignments, answers, notes and other necessary activities related to this course.

In the lecture 0, we have done registration. We discussed a bit about toys and game leading to the scope of this course (what is game design, not how to design a game). An outline of the course structure and evaluation was introduced.