CIS 4002: Advanced Projects in Computer Game Design

Game Developer Resources

One of the features of the course are the student discussion. We expect each student to find some topic that he or she is interested in, and find some article (either online or in a book) that covers that topic. We will then distribute this article to the rest of the class, and the student that chose it will be responsible for leading the class in discussion.

There are no restrictions on where your article comes from. You can find it online through teh Google, or you could find it from a book that you have borrowed from the library, or purchased yourself. It can be an article about art, music, programming, or game design (including game writing). Choose whatever type of topic that you are interested in.

Here are a couple of web sites to get you started. We have tried to organize them according to area of interest.

[Programmer] [Musician] [Artist] [Designer]

Programmer Resources

There are many, many game programmer resources online. Game programmers have a long history of sharing information with one another as they tackle hard problems. Indeed, sometimes you can learn a lot about the industry from just reading a developer's blog. In fact, a blog post is an acceptable article provided that it is long enough, and the content is suitably interested; ask Walker if you are in doubt.

With that said, there are certain sites that are very well known "one stop" resources for game developers. Here are just a few that we know.

Game Dev Net
This site is the Slashdot of Game Development. Its forums are comprehensive, and it is always the first place you should look when trying to understand how to do something in game development.
Dev Master
This site is a competitor to Game Dev Net, and is another excellent resource for tutorials.
Gamasutra
This site is another major source for game developers, as it contains summaries of GDC presentations written for a more general audience. It is also a common venue for industry postmortems.
AI Game Dev
This site used to be the go-to site for AI development. It is a much weaker site now that most of the material is stored behind a pay-wall. However, you can still find a few nuggets of wisdom in the free section.
AI Wisdom
This site is really just a table of contents for the various books in the Charles River Media collection. However, these books are major venue for game developers to share their wisdom, and it is worth owning some of these books. Walker has many of them in his office if you are interested in looking at them.

In addition to these resources, Walker has many books on game development and game engines in his office, particularly with respect to networking and artificial intelligence. If you are looking for anything interesting schedule an office hour to see if he can help you.

Musician Resources

What we call the "musician" in our game development courses is really two different job positions in the gaming industry. One position is the video game composer; like a film composer this person writes music that accompanies the action of the game, focusing on emotional impact. Indeed, the skills required for this position are very much the same as those required for a film composer. The other person is audio engineer; this person develops the sound effects and other auditory aspects intended to give the game realism. People interested in "music" may pick from resources in either of these two topics.

Unlike game programming, most of the resources for game scoring and audio engineering are to be found in book form, not online. If you want to use any of these resources, you will have to purchase them from Amazon or some other bookseller. With that said, if you are truly interested in working in game audio, then you should be purchasing books on this topic anyway. Here are just a few popular books to get you started:

Game Development Essentials: Game Audio Development
This book is part of a popular series designed to help people learn about game development on their own.
Creating Music and Sound for Games
This book is notable for its advice on how to break into the game industry as an audio engineer or sound designer.
Composing Music for Video Games, Web Sites, Presentations, and other New Media
This book works with the traditional concept of film scoring and discusses how it is different in a "new media" environment.
Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design
More history lesson than how-to guide, it is nonetheless interesting to see how game music and sound design have changed over the years. Walker has a copy of this book in his office.

In addition, there are a few meager online resources for audio development in games. If you pull a topic from one of these locations, talk to the course staff first to see if it is enough to warrant a discussion.

Gamasutra
In addition to articles on programming, Gamasutra also has several articles on audio in games. For example, here is an interesting article on adaptive music.
Sound-Music-Interactive-Games
This is one of the better developer blogs out there for audio in computer games. You should mainly rely on it for links to other resources, rather than articles from the blog itself.
AudioTuts
This site is good one for building up your fundamentals in audio design. It is primarily a collection of tutorials in audio engineering and sound design.
Sound on Sound
This website is a huge collection of tutorials in audio engineering and sound design.
Game Audio Forum
This website is really just a forum for professionals to swap tips with one another. However, you might find some interesting links in the threads here.

Artist Resources

Finding articles that talk about computer art in computer games is even harder than finding articles for audio engineers. For the most part, artists do not write about game art; they share it through sites like Deviant Art.

With that said, there are a couple of artistic topics that are readily available online. First of all, there is a wealth of resource for creating and animating 3D models. Here are resources on 3D modeling to get you started:

Game Art Resources
This is website is a popular resource for people learning about 3D art. It is provided by Paul Jaquays, a legendary game designer, known for his work with Quake, and before that the pen-and-paper RPG company Judge's Guild.
Gamasutra
Once again, Gamasutra is the source for everyone interested in developing computer games. For example, a recent article on animation blending is of particular interest to artists.
Spline Doctors
An interesting blog maintained by several animators at Pixar.

In addition to 3D animation, there is always the question of user interface. Sometimes the only difference between a "casual" game and a "hard core" game is the interface. The following sites specialize in user interfaces for games:

Game Interface Design
This is a collection of resources used by ITT Tech for its course on Game Interface Design.
User Interfaces for Games
A lecture given at the University of Michigan by David Kieras.

Designer Resources

Game design is a very broad topic; technically everyone in this course is a designer. In the case of designer resources, I mean everything else that does not fit into the other categories, such as game mechanics, game balance, game economies, reward structures, and so on. Here are a couple of my favorite game design resources:

The Designer's Notebook
In many ways, Ernest Adam's website is even better than his popular textbook. The No Twinkie Database is a great resource for learning from the mistakes of yeterday to make the games of tomorrow.
Gamasutra
At some point, it should become clear that this site is just a must read for everyone.
Game Dev Net
In addition to game programming, this website is a great resource for tackling game design issues.
The Art of Computer Game Design
Chris Crawford's famous essay on the topic, written in the 1990s.
Warren Spector's Blog
If you do not know who Warren Spector is, shame on you.
Teaching Game Design
An interesting blog talking about how we go about "teaching" game design to students.

In addition, there are many books available on game design. Here are just a few that Walker has in his office for people to read.

Rules of Play
This is the academic text on game design, and is a must read for anyone who wants to work in games. Some people criticize it for an overly formal approach to the field, but this just means that its strengths are in rules and mechanics rather than more artistic aspects of game design.
The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology
This is a companion text to Rules of Play, consisting of individual articles written by people on various topics in game design. Any one of these articles would make for a valuable class discussion.
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
This book is a reaction against the heavy formalism present in Rules of Play. It approaches game design more from a HCI (human computer interaction) perspective.