Lecture Archive

Click on a title to see the reading and course material.

Lecture 1 › Nature of Games
The definition of a game (and what does-and-does-not count as a game) is a highly controversial topic. While this lecture does not resolve this controversy, it does give you some understanding of the basic issues.   Details ›

January 22, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 2 › Design Elements
Before you propose your game idea, you need to understand the basic design vocabulary we will be using. Otherwise, you are very likely to pitch a narrative that does not have a clearly defined ludic focus.   Details ›

January 24, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 3 › Game Components
As you begin work on your game, understand that not everyone will be programming. In this lecture we show how we devide up game development to take advantage of your multidisciplinary team.   Details ›

January 27, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 4 › Rules and Mechanics
Before you start to program your game, you need a better understanding of how it is actually played. In this lecture we take a deeper look at how game mechanics work. This is the first of a series on rules.   Details ›

January 29, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 5 › Uncertainty and Risk
In our second lecture on game mechanics, we look at the nature of uncertainty and risk. While it is fine to have randomness in your game, it should be handled appropriately.   Details ›

January 31, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 6 › Economies and Balance
in our final lecture on game mechanics, we address the issue of game balance. In particular, we show it is tightly connected to your game economy.   Details ›

February 3, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 7 › Prototyping
It is time to start thinking about how to implement your project. In this lecture, we talk about how to take this big project and break it up into smaller prototypes.   Details ›

February 5, 2025 slides demos
Lecture 8 › Gameplay Modeling
The first major deliverable of the course is the nondigital prototype. In this lecture we talk about how to model a digital game without using software.   Details ›

February 7, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 9 › The Game Loop
Game development often involves the creation of a lot of specialized software. But the most important elementis the game loop. This infinitely running loop is what animates the characters and makes the game responsive to player input.   Details ›

February 10, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 10 › Architecture Design
Your teams have a lot of programmers on them. How do you divide up work and make sure that everyone is productive? The secret is designing your software architecture before you start to code. That is the subject of this lecture.   Details ›

February 12, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 11 › Data-Driven Design
One of the more unexpected features of your game is the level editor, which is due as part of alpha release. In this lecture, we talk about why this is an important part of game development.   Details ›

February 14, 2025 slides demos
Lecture 12 › Sprite Graphics
This is the first of three lectures focused on computer graphics. These lectures are designed to be useful to both programmers and designers. In this lecture we talk about how to draw a 2d image on to the screen.   Details ›

February 24, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 13 › Perspective
In the second of the three graphics lectures, we focus more on the designers. This time we address the issue of perspective, and show how focusing on 2d makes this a nontrivial design choice.   Details ›

February 26, 2025 slides demos
Lecture 14 › Geometry and Texture
In the last of the three graphics lectures, we go a little lower level and talk about graphics primitives. We talk about shape and geometry, and how to use images to do more than just display a sprite on the screen.   Details ›

March 3, 2025 slides demos
Lecture 15 › Game Memory
Even though you are working in Java, you must pay attention to memory usage in your games. Indeed, as we show in this lecture, memory usage is even more critical when working in Java.   Details ›

March 7, 2025 slides demos
Lecture 16 › Game Physics
Game physics can get really complex, so fortunately we have physics engines to help us with all the hard parts. But before we learn how to use a physics engine, we first need to understand the big picture.   Details ›

March 10, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 17 › box2d
Box2d is the primary physics engine for 2d games (even though this is the result of a historical accident). In this lecture we discuss its features and show how to use it effectively.   Details ›

March 12, 2025 slides demos
Lecture 18 › Pathfinding
We start our sequence of AI lectures talking about pathfinding. This is the process of using AI algorithms to move your game characters about the terrain.   Details ›

March 14, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 19 › Character Behavior
When people think about game AI, character behavior is the thing that they usually think of first. How do we control NPCs to move and act without any input?   Details ›

March 19, 2025 slides demos
Lecture 20 › Sensing & Perception
Sensing is the most expensive part of the sense-think-act cycle. In this lecture we show how to optimize this part of the process, so that we can increase the complexity of our NPC behavior.   Details ›

March 21, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 21 › Level Design
While we still have more to talk about with regards to game AI, we need to take a quick detour to talk again about design. With alpha release around the corner, we need to talk about how we do proper level design.   Details ›

March 24, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 22 › Strategic Planning
Returning to our lectures on AI, we move away from simulating individual characters and talk about how we would simulate another player. This is the AI that is necessary for complex strategy games.   Details ›

March 26, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 23 › Game Audio
Simple audio in LibGDX is pretty straight forward if you look at the code demos. But as we show in this lecture, a proper game engine should be able to do so much more, provided that you understand how game audio works.   Details ›

April 11, 2025 slides demos
Lecture 24 › Player Testing
Playtesting doesn’t seem like something we need a lecture for. We have been doing all semester long. But there is a science to it, and we want you to get a little more formal in the final playtesting sessions.   Details ›

April 14, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 25 › Storytelling
Some of people think of storytelling as the heart of game design. But other people disagree and say that games do not need story. In this lecture we address this controversy and talk about the role of story in games.   Details ›

April 16, 2025 slides no demos
Lecture 26 › Dialogue
Dialogue is the primary story vehicle in commercial, story-based games. As we see in this lecture, it is also the focus of some of the most interesting innovations over the past several years.   Details ›

April 18, 2025 no slides no demos
Lecture 27 › Special Guest
Normally we end the semester with a presentation talking about the state of the industry. But this time, we have a special guest. Vlad Judys, technical director of Skydance Interactive, will join us via Zoom to answer all your questions about the industry.   Details ›

April 28, 2025 no slides no demos