Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 XNA Game-Themed Programming Assignments Kelvin Sung Computing and Software Systems University of Washington, Bothell

Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 Idea Given a “Starter Project” with  All Graphics and User support  Does not work! Students complete the system by implementing the “missing piece” Support Professors who does not know any graphics or games programming!

Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 Our Approach: Game-Themed Assignment A set of Programming Assignment Modules …  Designed to be adopted selectively in existing classes  No requirements on knowledge of graphics or gaming 7 assignment modules on well defined CS1/2 topics:  For example: 2D Array / BST / Lists etc.2D ArrayBSTLists Each module includes 2 versions:  Game-themed and “traditional” console version  Console version is a good reference  Based on the same topics, the two versions may be different: e.g.:  2D Array / BST / Lists 2D ArrayBSTLists

Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 Assignment Module: Contents For Faculty:  Summary page: prerequisite + learning outcomes Summary page  Sample pre and post-testsprepost  Sample solution: console / XNAconsoleXNA  Sample Grading rubric (console / XNA)consoleXNA  FAQs FAQs  XNA Implementation Guide: on Graphics + UIImplementation Guide For Students:  Description of the assignment (console / XNA)consoleXNA  Skeleton starter project (console / XNA)XNA

Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 All The Assignments XGA ReleaseNoteReleaseNote  Operator:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution  Random Numbers & Arrays:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution  Array of Object References:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution  2D Array:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution  Class Hierarchy:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution  Linked Lists:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution  Binary Search Tree:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution

Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 Starter Project Our experience: Students must modify same source code  E.g., Operator:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution Students are given a well defined API  E.g., BST:  Console, XNA Starter, XNA Solution ConsoleXNA StarterXNA Solution

Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 Example XGAs: Switch, Modulus, Integer Division What Worked Well:  Graphical, interactive  Forced students to think about things like mod operator, in an open-ended / real-world-ish sort of way What Didn’t Work So Well:Didn’t Work So Well  Students can do this without integer division  (Do real division, then cast to int, then do mod)  One can’t really solve this without some understanding of the video game structure – Color.Red, or a clear view of the coordinate system.

Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 Example XGAs: Binary Search Trees Students implement a BST of chars  Add( char c )  Find( char c )  int FindTreeDepth()  Clone() -> new, deep copy of the tree  void Balance() // balances existing nodes in-place Students do NOT implement:  BST also has an in-order traverse method, privately implemented in the base class, so that the video game works, but doesn’t give away answers

Serious Game Winter School, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb 2010 Example XGAs: Binary Search Trees What Worked Well:Worked Well  Graphical, interactive  Nicely isolated BST – students really did not have to know about the gaming aspects  Could potentially re-use Console based stuff, including unit tests, etc What Didn’t Work So Well:  Example being too “academic”?