Course Goals

Computer Game Programming will help you build the programming skills needed to turn ideas into games. This means we'll be covering both runtime systems and the asset pipelines to fuel them, along with some game-design exercises (with an eye to thrifty code).

The philosophy of this course is to learn by building games, from (nearly) the ground up — this means lots of C++ and OpenGL hacking, a smattering of scripting (shell, python, javascript), and a lot of documentation-reading. You do not need to be an expert in any of these things, but it would help if you are familiar with C++ and the modern OpenGL (3.3+) API.

Previous years with similar content: Game Programming '23, Game Programming '22, Game Programming '21, Game Programming '20, Game Programming '19, Game Programming '18, Game Programming '17, Game Programming '09.

Work

Students will be graded out of 20 + 3N + 6 points, divided as follows:

PointsWork
6Class Participation
3NSmall Games
20Final Game

You will often be reading lesson materials asynchronously, then discussing the material in class; your class participation score will be based on your contributions to these discussions. Small games will be assigned roughly weekly to highlight basic game-related functions. The Final Game will be a larger undertaking by groups of 3-4.

There are no late days; however, if your lowest small game score is less than 3, it will be replaced by a 3 when computing your grade.

Life Advice

Being sick isn't fun. University health services often has flu vaccine available starting in September. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 measures may also work well against influenza.

Mental health is an important aspect of physical health. CMU's CaPS services exist to help you manage your mental state.

If you have a disability and are registered with the Office of Disability Resources, I encourage you to use their online system to notify me of your accommodations and discuss your needs with me as early in the semester as possible. I will work with you to ensure that accommodations are provided as appropriate. If you suspect that you may have a disability and would benefit from accommodations but are not yet registered with the Office of Disability Resources, I encourage you to contact them at access@andrew.cmu.edu.

Don't Steal

Using other people's code or data without giving credit is plagiarism. Plagiarism is an immoral activity that I take very seriously. If you plagiarize, you will fail the class, and I will do my best to make sure you are removed from CMU entirely.

All you need to do to avoid plagiarism is to make sure to give credit for the code and data you use in you project. Something as simple as the comment "//based on https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_CreateWindow" can save your academic career from ruin.

Additionally, most human-created works are covered by copyright and thus subject to some sort of license agreement. Make sure that code and data you use has a license agreement compatible with this course. For example, I am unwilling to pay for a license for a library so I can compile your code, or sign a non-disclosure agreement so I can read it.

"AI" note: treat the output of generative "AI" tools as you do web search results. They are distillations of other people's work. You did not make them, you queried for them. Don't try to pass them off as your own work, do cite properly, do consider the licenses of any potential constituent work.

Finally, there are two course rules which restrict your use of others' code beyond the basic requirements of ethics and legality:

  1. Avoid code from previous iterations of this course. There is a lot of it out there, but just don't look at it. You will learn less.
  2. Follow any game-specific rules. (E.g., some games require you to author all assets yourself so you understand the tools.)

Work Together

This is a course that involves writing a lot of code. Please, by all means, work together!

Resources

The course does not have a textbook. However, there are several documents available on the internet that you may find useful:

There are also some great, cross-platform content-creation tools that we will use in our asset pipelines:

And some places to get free game assets:

Schedule

Schedule subject to change.

Due dates "before class" unless noted otherwise.

August
Tues 27 Aug
Thur 29 Aug
September
Tues 3 Sep
Thur 5 Sep
  • Before Class: finish Meshes
  • From Blender to your game.
  • Scene efficiency.
Tues 10 Sep
Thur 12 Sep
  • Before Class: finish Sound ("Sound" part)
  • Design a sound API
Tues 17 Sep
  • Before Class: finish Sound ("Music" part)
  • Game2 Showcase
  • Music Theory by and for beginners
Thur 19 Sep
Tues 24 Sep
  • Game3 Showcase
  • Dialog and choice pipelines
Thur 26 Sep
  • Before Class: finish Collision
  • Build fast collision checks
October
Tues 1 Oct
  • Before Class: finish WalkMesh
  • Game4 Showcase
  • WalkMesh code share
Thur 3 Oct
  • Before Class: finish Networking
  • sockets warm-up
  • HTTP
  • Note: Participate in the Ludum Dare #56 game jam over the weekend and get +1pt extra credit
Tues 8 Oct
    Thur 10 Oct
    • Game5 Showcase
    • Theme selection
    • Set up group infrastructure
    • Write planning docs
    Tues 15 Oct
    No Class: Fall Break
    Thur 17 Oct
    No Class: Fall Break
    Tues 22 Oct
    • Game6 Showcase
    • The ECS Paradigm
    • Team check-ins
    • Prototype work time
    Thur 24 Oct
    • Before Class: finish Framebuffers
    • Linear Blend Skinning Example Code
    • Prototype work time
    Tues 29 Oct
    Thur 31 Oct
    November
    Tues 5 Nov
    No Class: Democracy Day
    Thur 7 Nov
    Tues 12 Nov
    • Before Class: finish Shadows
    • Shadow Maps Example Code
    • Game Theory, Planning, and Value Functions
    • Build out work time
    Thur 14 Nov
    Tues 19 Nov
    • Writing nifty shaders (water, ambient occlusion, edge detection, GPU particles)
    • Build out work time
    Thur 21 Nov
    • set up distribution (itch.io?)
    • Build out work time
    Tues 26 Nov
    Thur 28 Nov
    No Class: Thanksgiving
    December
    Tues 3 Dec
    • The confusing state of cross-platform graphics APIs
    Thur 5 Dec
    • Retrospective
    • Final game show and tell
    Fri 6 Dec
    Final Games Launch Party (Tepper Simmons B; Setup 3-3:30pm; Special Guests 3:30-4pm; Public 4-7pm.)
    OUT Aug 27 Game1: Sprite-Based Game DUE Sep 5
    OUT Sep 5 Game2: The Virtual World DUE Sep 12
    OUT Sep 12 Game3: Require Sound DUE Sep 19
    OUT Sep 19 Game4: Choice-Based Game DUE Sep 26
    OUT Sep 26 Game5: Walkmesh DUE Oct 3
    OUT Oct 3 Game6: Multiplayer DUE Oct 10
    OUT Oct 22 final A: Prototype DUE Oct 29
    OUT Oct 29 final B: Vertical Slice DUE Nov 7
    OUT Nov 7 final C: Build Out DUE Nov 26
    OUT Nov 26 final D: Polishing & Presskit DUE Dec 5