1. Week 1 - Introduction and Objects
Game Design
Week 1 - Introduction and Objects

2. Competition! Your Hero Broad theme, be creative
The more creative and interesting your take, the better
Focus will be on design and ideas, not programming

3. What is a game?

4. What is a game? A game is an activity played using a sets of rules
There are many types of games
Board games
Video games
Card games
Word games
Sports
General concepts apply across the board for games
We’ll be focusing on mechanics as we start out

5. Game General Concepts
Games (especially video games and board games) can be made up of any number of a few different elements:
Mechanics
Visuals
Narrative
Games will ALWAYS have mechanics, but not always visuals or narrative, and are always interactive in some way
We’ll be focusing on mechanics as we start out

6. Game Mechanics So let’s talk about game mechanics
Can someone give me an example of a game mechanic?

7. What are mechanics?
Rules that together form the constraints and functionality of the game
Defines how things like combat, interactions, etc work
Mechanics are the absolute core of any game

10. What games do you play? What mechanics does the game have?
Your examples?
What games do you play? What mechanics does the game have?
So let’s talk about game mechanics
Can someone give me an example of a game mechanic?

12. Breaking down mechanics
Breaking blocks in Minecraft

13. Breaking down mechanics
Breaking blocks in Minecraft
Player clicks the left mouse button (click event)
Character’s arm punches (animation)
Character’s arm checks to see if it’s hitting a block (collision detection)
If block is being hit, it starts to break (damage)
When click is held down, this repeats until the block takes enough damage to break
Let’s break down breaking down
So what does this rely on?
Tamara talked about events in web

14. Let’s look at the elements
Player Character
Character skin
Animations
Interactions from events
Movement, punching, placing blocks
Block
Type
Texture
Damage limit
How do we define these things in code?
These have loads of parameters associated with them.
There are loads of block types with different textures, uses and damage limits
We can’t define those with the code we know right now, so how do we do it?

15. Objects

16. What is an Object?
In real life, an object can be anything! (seriously)
All objects in the world have properties - for example, a car has a color, weight, max speed, and loads of other stuff
Some objects have methods - like functions or actions - for example, a car can start, drive, break, etc
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

17. The Base Object
We use objects in games when we want to create a sort of “model” of how something should be described
For example, a “car” is made up of a main body with 4 wheels that can drive, stop, and change directions
These details remain the same, regardless of the car, but other things like the color, size, speed etc can change
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

18. The Base Object A JavaScript object is essentially a collection of:
Properties; variables with values that describe aspects of the object, and
Methods; functions which describe what actions the object can take, or what it can do
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

19. Object Properties Name: Tesla Roadster Color: Red Year: 2019
Top Speed: 250+mph
Name: FIAT 500
Color: White
Year: 2008
Top Speed: 120mph
Now we can use our new constructor function to create different cars, using the same properties!
We just add in the values we want to use in the arguement list for the constructor

20. Objects can be written like variables, but use { }
Each property take the form of ⇒
property : value
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

21. Working with Properties
The values of properties can be accessed using object.property
What will the following give us:
car.name
car.weight
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

22. Adding an object Method
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

23. Working with Methods
Methods can be easily run from objects using object.method()
So what do you think will happen if we say car.drive()?
HINT: In JavaScript, the thing called this, is the object that "owns" the method/property.
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

24. Other ways of creating objects
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

25. Other ways of creating objects
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

26. Other ways of creating objects
Lets think about what our car object needs as an example

27. Useful Links W3Schools Javascript Objects
W3Schools Javascript Object Constructors