Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4101 Meta-Information: Presentations  Giving a talk  Writing a game proposal  Game History  Game Genres

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4102 Giving a Talk  What to say and How to say it  Getting through to the audience  Visual and Aural aids  Question Time

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4103 What to say & How to say it  Communicate Key ideas  Don’t get bogged down in details  Structure your talk  Use a Top-Down Approach

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4104 The Introduction  Define the problem / issue / thingy  Motivate the audience  Introduce terminology  Discuss earlier work  Emphasize your new work contributions  Provide a road-map  For very short presentations, economize on this section

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4105 The Body  General –Abstract the major results / thoughts / plans –Explain the significance of the results  Technicalities –Talk about the vital details that make the general points true  Conclusion –Hindsight is clearer than foresight

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4106 Know your audience  Who are they-- –The Public? –Scientists? –Computer Scientists? –Computer Scientists in your area? –Classmates?  The more expert or familiar the audience, the more you can focus on details

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4107 Getting Through  Use repetition  Remind the audience  Don’t Over-Run!  Maintain eye contact  Control your voice  Be well-groomed!  Avoid anxiety by Practice!

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4108 Visual & Audio Aids  PowerPoint slides –Don’t overload them –Don’t write sentences –Allow 1-2 minutes per slide –Don’t cover slides –No special fonts!!! Don’t animate text! It’s irritating!! You waste time waiting for the text to show up

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 4109 Visual & Audio Aids  Use pictures!  Show a picture as soon as possible!  Use overlays for stop-frame animation of algorithms

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Visual & Audio Aids  Use pictures!  Show a picture as soon as possible!  Use overlays for stop-frame animation of algorithms  Use animation if appropriate

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Visual & Audio Aids  Beware the microphone –Don’t beat your chest! –Try turning it off while you are putting it on or taking it off  Test your video –Cue it up –Be ready to switch from source to source –Be ready to adjust sound

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Question Time  Request for Information  Implied request for adulation –Come up with a complimentary answer  Malicious question –Be prepared –Be ready to take them off-line –“I don’t know”

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 41013

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT How to write a Game Proposal  Today’s games have a production team –Artists –Designers –Musicians –Programmers – experienced people

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT How to write a Game Proposal  Think Small

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Think Small  Really, I mean it

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Do One Thing Well  Make the game stand out in one way  Don’t do a mediocre job in all things  Do NOT to lots of levels in the game –One level will do nicely

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Do One Thing Well  Possible areas –Great graphics –Witty sounds –Clever puzzles –Compact concept

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Understand your Tools  The various tools have strengths & weaknesses  Don’t fight the tool  Understand what the tool is good for and tailor your project for that tool  Also.. Don’t fight your team’s skills

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Plan in Layers  Detailed development schedule: –Functional Minimum –Your Low target –Your Desirable target –Your High target –Your Extras Maybe do these after the term is done

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT The Proposal  The game description –5 pages of text –1-3 pages of sketches/ mocked-up screens  Layered Development Schedule –As on previous slide –Also state who is responsible for what  Assessment –What One Thing will be cool about your game

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT The Presentation  7 minutes In class –Describe your game –Argue for the One Cool Thing –State what your primary development environment will be and why –Show your development schedule Indicate why you think it’s do-able  Practice your talk!

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT 41023

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Game History, Genres Space Invaders… Pong… Grand Theft Auto… Action, Adventure, Puzzle, etc

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT History  Spacewar 1962 –PDP-1 –2 Ships controlled by 4 buttons each: –Rotate left, right, thrust, fire – ts/spacewar/  Adventure 1967 –Text-based adventure –“You are in a maze of twisty little passages”

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT History  Pong 1972 –First arcade hit  Home version of Pong 1974  Fairchild Channel F 1976 –Cartridges!  Hardware “Crash” 1977 –Millions of Pong clones saturate the market

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Some examples

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT History  Space Invaders 1978  Activision 1979 –First software house makes Atari 2600 Cartridges  Asteroids 1979 –Record score: 100,000,000 –Two guys played it for a week in 1982

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Asteroids (Clone)

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Arcade Games 1980  Defender  Missile Command  Battezone  Tempest  Popular with Men AND Women: –Pac-Man –Frogger –Centipede

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Defender / Stargate

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Missile Command

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Centipede

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Arcade Games  Donkey Kong  Q*Bert  Tron  Zaxxon  Joust  Pole Position  Punch-Out

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Joust

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Pole Position

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Home Games Late 70s Early 80s  Atari 2600 –1.18MHz 6507, 128 bytes RAM, 4KB ROM  Atari 5200 (incompatible cartridge with 2600) –1.8MHz 6502, 16KB RAM  Colecovision  Mattel Intellivision  Bally Astrocade

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Software Crash of  Market of 1982: $3 billion  Market of 1985: $100 million  Millions of clones and lousy cartridges –No rating system –No licensing system –Consumer confusion!

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Mid 80s  8-bit Home Games:  Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) –1.8MHz x240 pixels –Released 1986 –Most popular toy of 1988 –Mario Bros.  Sega Master System –Released 1986

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Late 80s  16-bit Home Games –Sega Genesis 7.8MHz MHz Z80, 1MB Rom, 64KB Ram Released 1989 –NEC TurboGrafx-16 16MHz  Game Boy  Tetris

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Early 90s  Super NES (16 bit), 1990 –3.58Mhz 65C816, 128KB Ram  Game Gear  Software –Street Fighter 2 First decent fighting game –Super Mario Bros. 3 –Sonic the Hedgehog –Mortal Kombat 1992

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Mid 90s  Sega CD (1992)  PC CDROM (1994)  Software –NBA Jam (1993) Earned $1 billion in arcades First franchise –Virtua Fighter (1995)

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Mid 90s  Playstation (1995) –33 MHz R bit CPU –24 bit framebuffer  Sega Saturn (1995) –Two 28.8MHz 32bit Hitachi SH2s –24 bit framebuffer –Hardware textures  Nintendo 64 (1996) –93MHz R bit CPU

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Mid 90s  Networked Games  Ultima Online, Everquest, etc

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Late 90s  Sega Dreamcast (1999) –200MHz 128bit NEC PowerVR  Playstation2 (2000) –294MHz R12000 CPU, –3.2GB/sec memory b/w, 6.2GFlops peak  XBox (2001) –733MHz Celeron –nVidia GeForce4 –6.4GB/sec memory b/w, maybe 1TFlops peak  GameCube (2001) –485MHz PowerPC –Flipper (ATI) Graphics (on-chip DRAM)

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Late 90s  Software –Very strong 3D! –Decent sports games –Soul Caliber, Shenmue, Grand Theft Auto …  PC Software –Graphics no longer 100% of the challenge –Consumer demand for 3D causes cheap 3D graphics!

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT ’s  Cell phone games –DoCoMo phones 2001 –Java J2ME, BREW 2002

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT s  Xbox 2 (360) (2005) –3 3200MHz : 2 scalar CPUS 1 VMX 128 Vector Unit w/ 128 registers –9 billion dot products/sec (36 billion mults+27 billion adds/sec) –500 million triangles per second –16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA –500MB 700MHz DDR memory  Playstation3 (2006) –PowerPC-base 7 x 7 x 128b 128 SIMD Registers total FP performance: 218 GFLOPS –GPU : 1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Game Genres  Name some!

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Genres  Action  1 st Person Shooter  Adventure  Fighting  Puzzle  Racing  Role-Playing  Simulations  Sports  Strategy  Music  Dance  Artificial Life  Quiz Show

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT D Action Games  Shoot the horde of aliens –Shoot the horde of aliens Shoot the horde of aliens –Shoot the horde of aliens Shoot the horde of aliens  Space Invaders, Galaga, Defender/Stargate,  Mario Bros

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT st Person Shooter  3D Shoot the horde of aliens –3D Shoot the horde of aliens 3D Shoot the horde of aliens –3D Shoot the horde of aliens 3D Shoot the horde of aliens  Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Max Payne, Counterstrike

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Adventure  Follow the trail  Solve puzzles  Nice scenery  Inventory  Learning  Examples: Zelda, Metroid, Myst, Prince of Persia 3D

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Fighting  Hand-to-hand combat  Influenced by Asian martial arts+media  Short games  Arcane knowledge  Limited virtual space

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Puzzle  Solving the puzzle is the primary goal  Gives feelings of mastery  Can be short –“Casual” games  Can be left aside and picked up again

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Racing  First past the post  Fairly strong simulation element  Fine motor control

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Role-Playing  3rd person adventure  Strong story component (potentially)  Learn the virtual world/environment  Players are free to act within the world’s constraints  Diablo, MMORPGs (EverQuest, UltimaOnline, World O Warcraft…)

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Simulations  Flight Sim  SimAnt, SimCity, Railroad Tycoon, Roller Coaster Tycoon,...  Focus on details  Training could be the goal

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Business  Simulate some commercial entrprise –Railroad Tycoon, Roller Coaster Tycoon –Typically network simulations

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Sports  Armchair coach  Abstract war  Abstract team fighting games

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Strategy  Same components as Sim games  Historical simulation  Puzzles may play a part  A light story element  No twitch in turn-based strategy

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Music  “Name that Tune”  Repeat a piece of music that the game plays for you  Play along musically

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Dance  Dance Dance Revolution  Dance kiosk type games

Sep 7, Fall 2006IAT Artificial Life  Tamagotchi, Creatures, Black & White