COMPUTER SCIENCE FOR ENGINEERS
I felt that this was the most influential course for me. My CS background is varied and more focused on web development, but CS for Engineers really gave me the opportunity to study the theory and put it into practice. It was exhausting and a lot of work, but I would also wish there were more time spent on this subject, like a second CS course.
APPROACHES TO GAME DESIGN
Here we established what projects we would be interested in taking on for our capstone. Initially I was not thinking about mobile features, just the type of game I wanted to put together. So, while I knew I wanted to create an action RPG it was in this class that I decided I would be looking into the light sensor functionality to affect the game space.
GAME DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORKS
Like Computer Science for Engineers this was a very hand on course where we got our first opportunity developing a game. This was a hard and fast learning experience, we developed two games in the four-week period and for me it was my first exposure to C# and C++ with Unity and Cocos2D. I wanted to explore C++ more throughout the entire degree but ultimately, I stuck with C# and Unity just because I knew it would be quicker and more efficient for me to pick up with my background in Java.
AGILE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
This course was beneficial in reviewing some of the ways to break down a project for the Agile development process. The knowledge gained here was useful in setting up a storyboard through Trello to aid in project management during the later development courses. This was also our first opportunity to begin building out our game design documents for the capstone project.
USABILITY ENGINEERING
In Usability Engineering we mainly worked on how our project could be user focused. This involved determining what the user is capable of within the bounds of the gameplay mechanics, defining the UI and how it works to support the user in accomplishing their goals, and determining any additional user needs. This was our time to set significant groundwork and planning before beginning the development process.
MOBILE GAMING BUSINESS
Here we put together a plan based on our risk and market analysis studies for how to monetize our mobile game projects. While reviewing the different methods of monetization we also aimed to create a small business plan for the deployment of our individual project. This course culminated in our greenlit presentation which, after approval, lead us into the development phase of our project.
STORYBOARD & GAME DESIGN
For this course we largely focused on building the base prototypes of our project. This allowed us to put together baseline structure that we could build from, this was important because ensuring this prototype functions well early on would allow us to avoid any major problems down the road. While developing these prototypes we also mapped out our game design structure. This process helped to see what worked and what would within a realistic development scope by refining our game design based on feedback from each prototype submission.
MOBILE GAME DEVELOPMENT 1
Here I was able to get a significant amount of work done on my project. Basic enemy AI, player movement and abilities, light sensor functionality, and the Unity ads service were some of the highlights as well as designing some of the art for the game. I did begin to hit a wall with the A-Star pathfinding for the enemy characters but in general it was a very productive period.
MOBILE GAME DEVELOPMENT II
While some aspects of my project continued to grow and become more refined during this course, I still had been stuck on the pathfinding for longer than I had intended. In week two I decided to take a break and I instead began building a secondary project with the approval from my advisor. Since it become clear my main project wouldn’t be more than a demo by the end of the program I began to focus on putting together a small endless runner that could be deployed to the Google Play Store as a complete project. This ended up being successful and just after the end of the course this project was deployed and made available to the public.
MOBILE GAME TESTING
Having one project completed I was able to return to the problem of pathfinding. I think the break really helped because within the first week of testing I had it working and then began building out the more advanced state machine for the enemy character AI. After completing the enemy AI to a sufficient state, I cleaned up the game for user testing. Some of the user feedback ended up being very valuable and I was able to add new features like additional light sources and enemy health bars as suggested by some testers before submitting my final demo.
MOBILE GAMING THESIS: TECHNICAL WRITING & PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION
Most of this course has just been preparing for my final presentation. I am satisfied with all that I have accomplished and, in some ways, achieved more than I ever expected to a year ago. I am confident that I will be able to build out a significant library of indie games in the coming years with the skills I have worked to refine during this master’s program and I’m looking forward to what’s next.
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