1. Game Design Practicum (CMPS 179) Summer 2012 Course Overview
UC Santa Cruz
CMPS 179 – Game Design Practicum
courses.soe.ucsc.edu/courses/cmps179/Summer12/01
25 June, 2012

2. What is this course about?
Gaining game design skills by working with a challenging platform
Last semester: Kinect games
This semester: Games connected to the World

3. What is this course about?
Becoming a better game designer
Quickly develop a game pitch that is consistent with a provided theme*
Quickly refine a game idea based on received critiques and playtest feedback*
Use traditional mechanics in non-traditional games
Understand the mechanics of non-game experiences, and how they can be applied to games
Economics!
*From Jim Whitehead’s intro lecture to Fall CS179

4. What is this course about?
Being a critic, and taking criticism
Ability to give constructive game feedback based on a game pitch, or a gameplay presentation*
Learn the qualities of a good game critique*
Ability to give a gameplay demo as part of a process of eliciting critiques*
*From Jim Whitehead’s intro lecture to Fall CS179

5. What is this course about?
Learning a new technology
A different platform requires different kinds of design
Making games on the web creates many tricky constraints
And MANY new capabilities
Web development is a new way to make games
And a really, really fast way to deploy them
Connecting to web services and data feeds

6. Course Format
High-level organization of the course: Classwork and technology
Week 1
Start learning JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
Week 2-3
JavaScript Frameworks for advanced graphics
Phase I game (individual project)
Week 4-5
Critiques of Phase I game
Phase II game (small team project, two team members)
Week 6-7
Critiques of Phase II game
Phase III game (small team project, 2-4 team members)
Week 8
Refine the Phase III game

7. Course Format
High-level organization of the course: Design issues and readings
Week 1: What is Web 2.0?
Week 2: What is value? Linking in-game element to external values, advertising
Week 3: Rewards and achievements
Week 4: Games with friends: social capital as a game resource
Week 5: Distributing resources, auctions, elections, “fairness”
Week 6: Location!
Week 7: Hacking economics: new models of “value” for a post-scarcity world
Week 8: Review of the topics covered
What happens when you connect a game to the Internet, or to the real world?

8. Weekly Schedule Scheduled Class Time Drop-in help
Tues/Thurs, 1-3:15pm, JBE 268
Will often include working lab time
Drop-in help
Tue/Thurs, 3:30-5pm, E2 393

9. Grading
Grades for the class are based on the following weighting of class activities:
Homework assignments and participation (20%)
Game project #1 (25%)
Game project #2 (25%)
Game project #3 (30%)
Grades for the game projects are based on the following weighting of project activities
Game pitch (15%)
Critiques of other student games (20%)
Week 1 prototype (25%)
Final game (40%)
The class instructor reserves the right to grade a project lower (or higher) than these individual sub-grades might indicated, based on their overall judgment of the quality of the game as a whole.

10. Introductions Please introduce yourself Name Class year
A connected game (or ‘experience’) you’ve been playing recently

11. An introduction to web games

12. An introduction to web games

13. An introduction to web games

14. An introduction to web games

15. An introduction to web games

16. An introduction to web games

17. An introduction to web games

18. An introduction to web games
The ecosystem is changing
It can support fewer dinosaurs, but more small mammals
When you graduate, where will the jobs be?
If you start your own studio, how will you provide value?
How will your game get to customers?

19. What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 is a concept that takes the network as a platform for information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. -Wikipedia

20. What is Web 2.0?
"The best way to build a successful business is to help other people make money." Rich Skrenta
"eBay has 150M customers, in the nicest terms, that's 150M people who have learned to trust strangers." Pierre Omidyar
Web 2.0 is about using COLLABORATION to create VALUE

21. What is Web 2.0? A collection of technologies HTML
JavaScript (and its frameworks)
CSS

22. What is Web 2.0? A collection of technologies HTML
Creates the structure
JavaScript (and its frameworks)
Implements logic, and communications with other services
CSS
Controls the appearance

23. What is Web 2.0? A collection of technologies HTML
Creates the structure
JavaScript (and its frameworks)
Implements logic, and communications with other services
CSS
Controls the appearance

24. What is Web 2.0? A collection of technologies HTML
Creates the structure
JavaScript (and its frameworks)
Implements logic, and communications with other services
CSS
Controls the appearance

25. What is Web 2.0? A collection of technologies HTML
Creates the structure
JavaScript (and its frameworks)
Implements logic, and communications with other services
CSS
Controls the appearance

26. http://jsfiddle.net/ LAB SECTION! And let’s build an RPG
Get to a computer, and go to
And let’s build an RPG

27. Assignments for Thursday
READ “What is Web 2.0?” Tim O’Reilly
Install Aptana, by itself or on Eclipse
Port the RPG JSFiddle example to Aptana
You’ll need to create an HTML file and a JavaScript file
Upload it to your student site

28. Assignments for Thursday
AQUIRE: “The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Microeconomics” $10.55 on Amazon