CIS 300: Introduction to Computer Game Design

CIS 300
Introduction to Computer Game Design

 

Showcase Guidelines (11/27/2005)

Be sure to read up on the guidelines for the showcase. In particular, be sure to have your poster ready for the showcase, and email me by tomorrow with your computer/speaker requests.

- Mohan

Sound Effects (11/27/2005)

As you know, our sound effects library is available for use. The CDs are located in the instructor cabinet in (CL)3. Note that the CDs are for in-lab use only. You may not copy the CDs are remove the from the lab under any circumstances. Also, these sound effects may not be included in the final release of your game in their raw .wav form - you will have to "synchronize" them by embedding them into your game.

- Mohan

.gxs Sound Format (11/27/2005)

GameX supports the .gxs sound format. You can download a .wav to .gxs converter here.

- Mohan

Office Hours! (9/12/2006)

The CIS300 staff now has official office hours, starting today:

    Tuesdays 2:30-3:30 in CL3.

 

Mohan and most of the TAs will be there every week. We strongly encourage anyone who has questions about any of the labs or their projects to come see us then.

 

Also, feel free to email any of the TAs with questions - they have lots of experience and can probably resolved your problems very quickly.

 

And of course, you're always welcome to email me.

- Mohan

 

Visual Studio Fix (9/5/2006)

The programming TAs have given me instructions that might be helpful:

-Mohan

Some people have asked how to compile GameX applications on their home machines. I thought that we should have a page on the course website with instructions for how to do this. Since I don't have access to updating the webpage, I'll give you the instructions and maybe you could put them up sometime. (Note: these instructions assume that you have Windows XP and a DirectX 9.0 compliant video card.)

1) Download and install the latest version of the DirectX 9.0 SDK from http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/sdk. Click on the link that looks like "DirectX SDK - (Month Year)".

2) Download and install the Windows Platform SDK. One version that will work is the Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK. You can get it here.

Download the file PSDK-x86.exe if you have a 32-bit machine, PSDK-amd64.exe if you have an AMD-64 machine, or PSDK-ia64.exe if you have an ia64 machine.

This contains library and header files for DirectShow, a component of DirectX that is used by GameX and that is no longer distributed with the DirectX SDK.

3) In Visual Studio, go to Tools -> Options -> Projects and Solutions ->

VC++ Directories

4) Let DXSDK be the path where you installed the DirectX SDK.

Select "Show directories for: Include files" and add the path DXSDK\Include

5) Select "Show directories for: Library files" and add the path

DXSDK\Lib\x86 (assuming a 32-bit machine; if you have a 64-bit machine, replace x86 with x64.)

6) Let PLATFORMSDK be the path where you installed the Platform SDK.

Select "Show directories for: Include files" and add the path PLATFORMSDK\Include

7) Select "Show directories for: Library files" and add the path PLATFORMSDK\Lib

8) Click OK. You should now be able to compile and run GameX applications from within Visual Studio.

 

Some quick notes (8/30/2006)

Here's some quick information about the course for people not sure where to go/what to do:

We meet in CL3, which is a nifty computer lab in Uris Library. <cl3.library.cornell.edu>. We meet there every day (Monday to Friday) 12:20-1:10. The whole section/lecture thing is a little misleading; we all meet together in the same place every day.

Our textbook is Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design, available at the campus store. There is a newer edition available (or almost available; I haven't actually received my copy yet), but officially we're using the older one. Either version should be fine though, in case you already have the newer one.

We still have a couple of spots open in the class, especially for artists and musicians. So if you are or know anyone who might be into designing games, please encourage them to consider taking the course. 

- Mohan