Introduction

Over the last five years, I have worked as a faculty member in Cal Poly Pomona’s Computer Science (CS) department. Having formerly worked as a game programmer for Kronos Digital Entertainment, I frequently assign programming projects with a slant towards solving game development problems. Our students especially appreciate the opportunity to program applications that interest them. About a year ago, students finally persuaded me to offer a one-term game development course.

I created a 10-week course that would allow senior-level CS students the opportunity to conceive, design, and implement a 3D PC game. This course, Intro to Game Development, was offered for the first time in Spring 2006. Each game was required to have three different levels, each with increasing difficulty. I selected OpenGL for the graphics pipeline, GLUT for event handling and models, OpenAL for sound effects, Microsoft’s MCI API to play back CD audio tracks, and Lua to script game-state information. C and C++ were used to implement the game engine and to put it all together.

Although offered as a senior-level course, students had differing strengths. Some had taken the 2D/3D computer graphics course (where we teach OpenGL), some had taken the AI course, some had taken the operating systems course, and so on. Consequently, students selected their teammates not simply based upon who they knew, but also based on their perception of student skill bases. The prerequisite I required for all students was completion of the C++ programming course we offer.

Student Storyboard for Level 1

Milestones

To help ensure that students would be successful in the ten-week period of time, I created a milestone chart that included deliverables due at the end of each of the ten weeks. I typically lectured once per week presenting theory and examples while students utilized the rest of their time to work within their groups. For the final (week 11), each team presented their game and performed a critical stage analysis.