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Innovative Techniques and Technologies for Teaching Games Design
Andrew Williams, Brian Morris, Phil Carlisle
What we did…
Considered innovative (for us) approaches to tackling a new course Blogging
Maybe useful to everyone (esp PDP)
“Robot Battle” Probably only useful to us!
Some success and some things we can still improve
Our backgrounds
Andrew Williams Lecturer for 13 years, teaching technical
computing Brian Morris
Police officer, BSc in 2002, PGCE in 2004, lecturer for 3 years
Phil Carlisle Games industry for 20 years, lecturer
since October 2003
Our “portfolio” (1) Computer Games Software Development
(games programming) Highly technical Includes both maths and physics Extremely complex programming
Introduced in September 2002 In our “comfort zone” Very poor completion rate
Many entrants don’t understand what they’re getting into
Our “portfolio” (2)
Games Design Less technical Not “design” as in “art and design”
Interaction design
Way outside our “comfort zone” Introduced in September 2005
In part because of the failure rate on CGSD
What does a game designer do? Project Zero (aka Fatal Frame) on the left and
Baldur’s Gate on the right, both for the PS2:
Our problems
Our main difficulty on CGSD is with motivation Students think that because they like to
play games, they will want to make games Making games is hard … and it’s often no fun at all!
Our weaker CGSD students hardly ever work outside of class
Our problems (continued)
How should three “techies” teach games design? Important not to create “CGSD-lite” Had to consult game designers Had to learn from more creative courses (Important to get CGSD “refugees” on
the right track as soon as possible) Got to get out of our “comfort zone”
Our problems (continued)
How does a student know that she has a good design? We could tell them, but what’s the point?
No real problem with programming Either it works or it doesn’t!
Reflection is most important This fits nicely with the PDP, which we
were also thinking about at the time…
Step 1: Talk to game designers
We have good contacts BECTA project
Interviewed game designers from five development studios
Trying to identify what they do to encourage motivation and engagement in their games
Very useful intelligence for our new course!
Game designer characteristics Game designers are not nerds
Communication is hugely important: Communicate with artists Communicate with programmers Communicate with audio musicians Communicate with producers Communicate with publishers Communicate with players/fans
One designer said he does more writing than anything else
Game designers talk a lot too!
Step 2: Think hard about classes
How could we encourage reflection? How could we encourage creativity? How could we get our students to
work outside of class? How could we get our students to
communicate? How could we get our students to
become more confident?
What we planned
Timetable setup: One hour lecture/demo on Monday or Tuesday Open access session on Weds or Thurs One or two hour critique session on Friday
Students told in the first class to prepare something for the critique on Friday
Critiques done “on the whiteboard” so the whole class can watch!
GAD1003 – Games Reviewing
Students required to create a blog Short for weblog, an online journal which is
regularly updated The blog was created in-class on week one Blogging on commercial servers!
Thereafter, weekly entries were required Most entries were short reviews (c300 words) of
games Some entries reflection on progress etc
GAD1003 Games Reviewing
GAD1003 is more about how to write properly than about reviewing games
Games reviews used to supply motivation Fifteen out of nineteen passed the course
The other four had all given up long before the end for one reason or another
Therefore, all the students who participated throughout passed the module
GAD1003 Games Reviewing
What went right: Students did a lot of work Blogging was accepted by all the students Students now used to being critiqued in public Students in general enjoyed the critiques
(With the possible exception of one student) Students' writing generally improved Students have an online portfolio (sort of!)
GAD1003 – Games Reviewing
What went wrong: Students hated critiquing other students'
work Felt that they didn't have the skills
Should have spent more time doing crits in Friday sessions Students were actually enjoying crits, while I
thought they didn't like them much They enjoyed their own crits, not other students' Maybe best to do crits individually, but...
GAD1003 – Games Reviewing
What went wrong (continued) Marking load was high (hard to keep up) Range of games in labs was limited Reflection is hard to encourage if marks
are attached When I tried, I got lots of comments about
how nice the teacher was!! Didn't encourage students to read each
other's blogs – a major error, I think
GAD1003 – Games Reviewing
Conclusions: Blogging was a complete success
The easiest success I'll ever have in teaching I recommend it for any first year module
where you want students to work regularly Perhaps blogging works because it breaks
up the students' perceptions about the nature of university work? It is their blog, not ours!
GAD1003 – Games Reviewing
For the course as we studied it in 2005-6, please see:
http://www.bolton.ac.uk/staff/adw1 and follow the link to Games Reviewing
GAD1000 – Games Scripting
“Scripting”, in this context, means programming within a game Somewhat like programming, only simpler
Scripting is becoming more common as a task for a game designer It is hard to find good programmers Providing scripting tools for designers to use
means you need fewer programmers...
GAD1000 – Games Scripting
The problem with scripting Scripting is hard, and to do anything
useful can be very hard indeed Many of our games design students
have already discovered that they don't like programming As far as they can see, programming and
scripting are (more or less) the same thing
GAD1000 – Games Scripting
How to approach Games Scripting Need a visual approach
It's easier It's more like what a designer would do
Need a motivational “hook” Scripting is easier than programming But need something to push students to
try harder when the going gets tough
GAD1000 – Games Scripting
Robot Battle Highly visual Easy to program Tournament system
Students were required to program robots to fight against robots programmed by their peers The competition between students
provided the necessary motivation
GAD1000 – Games Scripting
A proportion of the students' marks were awarded for how they did in the competition
Students were able to refine their robots over a period of weeks, improving them based on previous competitions
Two competitions: individual and team
GAD1000 – Games Scripting
What went right: Students were motivated, especially once
the competitions started Even weaker students made progress Most students who made an effort passed
the course The robot battles, displayed on the big
screen, were highly entertaining
GAD1000 – Games Scripting
What went wrong: Perhaps too long before the first
competition Some students “coasted” until the first
battles One student plagiarised his group's work
GAD1000 – Games Scripting
Conclusions An excellent result, in a module which was a
potential minefield for many of our students Maybe not so much use outside of the CET
department? Maybe business games?
Extremely useful on the games courses and has been used in two other modules, one at Level 2 and one at Level 3