COMP222: Principles of Computer Game Design and Implementation

Instructor:

Recommended reading:

• Steve Rabin (Ed.). Introduction to game development. Second edition. Charles River Media. 2010.
• John Ahlquist & Jeannie Novak. Game development essentials: Game artificial intelligence. Thomson. 2008.
• Millington, I. & Funge, J. 2009. Artificial intelligence for games (2nd edition). Burlington, M. A.: Morgan Kaufmann/Elsevier
• Ericson, C. 2005. Real-time collision detection. Amsterdam; Boston: Elsevier.
• Millington, I. Game Physics Engine Development (Second Edition). Elsiveier. 2010
  

You may also find useful the following book series:

Lecture Times and Locations:

• Monday 11:00-12:00 ASHT-LR
• Tuesday 14:00-15:00 ASHT-RL
  
• Friday 12:00-13:00 ASHT-LR
  

Lab Times and Locations:

• TBA

Useful Programming Materials and Web Resources

• Instructions, source code from lectures, and web links for jMonkeEngine can be found here

Assignments

• Assignment 1 deadline: Wednesday 14 March 15:00
  The assignment is split in a number of steps. My implementation of the first seven steps is available here.
  Working on your assignment, you will find useful jMonkeyEngine materials that can be found here, in particular, the TestPong example that comes with the jMonkeEngine distribution.
  
• Assignment 2 deadline: Thursday 26 April 16:00
  

  Coursework marks

  • Coursework marks and feedback can be found here
    
  
  

  Lecture Notes:

  • Part  1: Introduction
  • Part  2: Game genres; game structure
  • Part  3: Game architecture; Game engine
  • Part  4: Introducing jMonkeyEngine.
  • Part  5: Vectors in 2D and 3D. Translation.
  • Part  6: Uniform motion. Space transformations.
  • Part  7: Dot and cross products.
  • Part  8: jMonkeEngine programming.
  • Part  9: Low- and mid-level collision detection. 
  • Part 10: High-level collision detection. Spatial data structures. (This now contains extra material on Hash Functions and BSP solid-leaf tree code with example)
  • Part  11: Euler steps in computer game physics. Targeting problem. Ball-plain and ball-ball collision response.
    
  • Part  12: Physics engine.
    
  • Part  13: Game artificial intelligence. Game agents and virtual player. Turn-based games; chance games.
    
  • Part  14: Decision trees. Rule-based systems.
    
  • Part  15: Finite state machines. Hierarchical finite state machines. 
  • Part  16: Robocode lecture. Assignment 2.
    
  • Part  17: Behaviour trees.
    
  • Part  18: Planning for computer games.
    
  • Part  19: Agent movement: steering behaviours.
    
  • Part  20: Agent movement: pathfinding. Tile-based games.
    
  • Part  21: Pathfinding in 3D.
    
  • Part  22: AI: concluding remarks.
    
  • Part  23: Overview of 3D modelling, animation in games, procedural content generation, and topics for further reading + an overview of topics covered in the module + mock exam questions.
    

  Past exam papers:

  • 2010-11 exam paper
    

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