“The best way to learn games is to play games. The best way to make games is to work.” – Alan Emrich
Game Maker Tutorials:
When we left class today, Game Maker Tutorial #12 (Tic-Tac-Toe) was nearly (if not) complete. Your homework this week begins by finishing this tutorial lesson (and you should review the lessons for it taught in Chapter 13 of The Game Maker’s Apprentice in any case). Make sure you grasp want an array is, what a script is, and how we use adaptive behavior to modify a game’s AI to better compete at the player’s level.
There
is no required homework due for this game.
(The required reading in the textbook, listed below, is the most important use
of your time and attention during our interim between classes this week.)
However, you can do some modding for Tic-Tac-Toe and garner yourself some serious Extra Credit. What sort of mods?
1)
Have the AI choose a position that lets it win two different ways (see
page 257 in the Apprentice textbook – worth up to
10 points);
2) Create the graphics and AI for a 3D (i.e., 3-level) Tic-Tac-Toe game, pictured here (worth up to 15 points); or
3) Create a 4-in-a-Row variant with a larger board (like Connect 4 uses – and, if you can, using Connect 4’s rules where pieces “drop down”), a picture of which is shown here (worth up to 20 points – a full letter grade in this course!);
4)
Create a Nine Men’s Morris computer game. Remember it from
Week 1 of Survey of the Game Industry? A picture of the board
layout is shown here (worth up to 30 points
– a letter-grade-and-a-half in this
course!).
Since this is an Extra Credit assignment, your .gm6 save game file is due at any time before the end of the course, either on disk or via email to the instructor.
The Game Maker’s Apprentice Textbook:
Chapter
12, Become a Programmer:
Read pages 225 to 255. Be sure to use the
CD-ROM included with the book to examine the .gm6 files in the Games / Chapter
12 folder! This Chapter is required foundational material for next week’s
overview lesson on Game Programming 101. This information (complete with
mini-tutorial games so that you can actually see and do what
you’re reading) is also vital for understanding how next week’s tutorial
game (the first-person shooter, Slightly Less Doomed) is constructed and
will enable you to grasp the challenges of next week’s homework.
Do not ignore this chapter or give it only a cursory effort. Delve deeply into it and try to come to a clear understanding of its lessons! In this chapter, you really walk a mile in a programmer’s shoes, and you know what Mr. Emrich says about that!
This chapter is hugely important; don’t muck it up!
Quiz #4 is next week:
Next week features the fourth quiz. It is worth 10 points and covers the material from this week’s reading on programming (vitally important!) and the required reading section for this week on the course web site.
