Introduction To Game Development

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    • Introduction To Game Development

      charlesriver.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=99109

      So this summer, I'll be teaching a night course on advanced game programming at the local community college here in Austin, Texas while trying to keep up with my day job. I wanted to do something nice for the local community while pushing myself beyond my comfort zone. I'm a little nervous as I have never taught before.

      I was really trying to figure out what kind of topics should go into my lesson plans. In order to figure that out, I had to get an idea of where my stuff would fit into the big picture. This book is proving to be very useful.

      It is based off the IGDA's suggested curriculum framework:
      igda.org/academia/IGDA_Curriculum_Framework_Feb03.pdf

      I could totally see this book being an official textbook in some game dev program somewhere... and it is actually a textbook that doesn't suck.
    • RE: Introduction To Game Development

      It would be good to see a table of contents....but on the surface it looks good.

      A textbook's main strength is a good set of questions and exercises at the end of each chapter - but most especially the availability of an answer key for instructors. Does this have that???
      Mr.Mike
      Author, Programmer, Brewer, Patriot
    • I have that book and it's used here in DigiPen's 200 GAM class. To be perfectly honest, Kain, I really don't like it at all. It seems overly simplistic, I don't like the explanations, and the exercises are complete tedium. I really wish I hadn't bought it, frankly. It's not a book that I'd recommend.
      Feel you safe and secure in the protection of your pants . . . but one day, one day there shall be a No Pants Day and that shall be the harbinger of your undoing . . .
    • There are a set of exercises at the end of every chapter, but no answer key that I can tell. One of the cool things about the book for the sake of instructors is that it comes with a disc full of lecture presentations. This will be useful to me in that I can use those as a springboard for my own lectures.

      To address Tarviathun's comment, I would never make this a mandatory book for a class such as mine. The book would be too broad and doesn't go into enough detail on the technical topics to actually implement anything, but that's ok, because the book contains 979 pages and no page is wasted, IMHO. There are plenty of other books that will focus on an area of specialization, and they do that job well. I would definitely recommend this book for a survey class on Game Development that includes students of all disciplines who are still trying to figure out where they fit in. It serves nicely as a comprehensive index showing the scope of knowledge involved in making games, and it is the only survey book I am aware of that is dominated by contributions from industry professionals as opposed to dedicated academics.
    • It just seemed too general to me, too broad from what I read, to be useful. Perhaps this was just me being a spiteful student (which it very well may be), but the exercises that I did and the chapters I read all seemed pretty obvious. Things such as writing an essay on how a game uses path finding, or create a diagram of two different games' gameplay elements and explain how they're different.

      However, as a survey text, it is probably very successful, as that is the purpose of the book. The question that I would pose, though, is this a book that would be useful for an advanced game programming class? I'm not sure the level of students' knowledge in regards to game development, so perhaps it's very fitting. But in a class where students are relatively knowledgeable about game development, I'm not sure if it would be terribly useful.

      Additionally, I'm also currently in the process of developing a curriculum for a couple different game development courses. My target students, though, are high school students. If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to share notes or materials and see how other people are approaching it.
      Feel you safe and secure in the protection of your pants . . . but one day, one day there shall be a No Pants Day and that shall be the harbinger of your undoing . . .
    • To be clear, this is NOT the book I will be using for Advanced Game Programming; this book would be horrible for that class, as I mentioned earlier and for all the reasons you have pointed out. In fact, I'm thinking there will be no book for the class. Just my ppt slides. There are plenty of good books out there, and they are all freakin' expensive for students, and they all don't cover exactly what I would cover.

      Here's the deal with my class, and why I'm using this book just for my own self:

      In 2003, a bunch of industry and academic folks got together under the umbrella of the IGDA and made a game dev curriculum framework here:
      igda.org/academia/IGDA_Curriculum_Framework_Feb03.pdf
      This book is based off that framework.

      I think this framework is a great place to start in terms of getting an idea of where my class would fit into the big picture. The curriculum at ACC is somewhat loose, and I really want to make sure my students come away with knowledge that they can use to get a job without overlapping with the other classes. So, I'm cross-referencing this book's material with the other classes offered at ACC, and I'm basically focusing on the programming part of the book to get a shallow summary of what I need to cover for the class. Of course, I'll be drawing on plenty of other references, such as McShaffry's book and my own work experience, to fill in the details and augment areas where I feel that IGDA's topic suggestions may have missed some things, such as event systems and interviewing tips.

      Here's a page full of other people's curriculums:
      igda.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Courses

      I've found it... somewhat useful.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Kain ().