XNA Game-Themed Workshop, FDG Pre-Conference Workshop, April 25, 2009 Designing your own Game-Themed Assignments Kelvin Sung Computing and Software Systems University of Washington, Bothell

XNA Game-Themed Workshop, FDG Pre-Conference Workshop, April 25, 2009 Remember: Student Learning Objective It is NOT about games!  Games is a means, not the end!  Goal is: Learn concepts!! Games is nice, but …  cannot let it get in the way of learning!

XNA Game-Themed Workshop, FDG Pre-Conference Workshop, April 25, 2009 Suggested Approach Identify Technical Topic Choose a ‘game’ type Brainstorm a ‘game’ to implement Implementing the example solution Write the assignment, create student starter project

XNA Game-Themed Workshop, FDG Pre-Conference Workshop, April 25, 2009 Identify Technical Topic Suggestion: Pick an existing homework assignment, and use the topic(s) that it covers.  E.g., Linked Lists, Binary Search Tree, 2D Arrays

XNA Game-Themed Workshop, FDG Pre-Conference Workshop, April 25, 2009 Brainstorming A Game: Places To Incorporate Technical Topics Game Rules:  Reversi: Traverse 2D array & figure out if proposed move is valid Reversi Game Results / Game State:  Use a BST to store the letters Use a BST General Interaction:  Link list (as a Queue) supporting structure for dropping toys Link list Constrained Interaction:  conditional statements keep the hero on-screen

XNA Game-Themed Workshop, FDG Pre-Conference Workshop, April 25, 2009 Game-Themed Assignments Sample assignment should be built around: 1. An assignment specification (to be given to the students, so they know what to do) 2. A starter project (so students don’t have to know about the video-game specific stuff) The BST example: Solution vs Starter ProjectSolutionStarter Project

XNA Game-Themed Workshop, FDG Pre-Conference Workshop, April 25, 2009 Choose A ‘Game’ Type Graphical Picture  Nothing moves, No user interaction  Good for CS1, very simple assignments Animation / Visualization  A sequence of pre-defined movements  No user interaction  Also good for CS1 simple assignments Interactive Game  Movement of objects responds to user interaction

XNA Game-Themed Workshop, FDG Pre-Conference Workshop, April 25, 2009 Background: Starter Project Ideally, students work to implement something with a very clean, “API-like” interface  Allows you to spend “NO” time spent teaching about graphics or games in-class Avoid giving students partially completed source code files that they “fill-in-the-blanks”, while trying to figure out how their code interacts with the rest of the program