Software Engineering

and Game Design

By: Gavin Kinsley

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• The Evolution of Game Development

• Video Game Development Process

• Engines

• Getting Into the Game/Or Not?

• Importance of Software Engineers

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– Most games were developed by single programmers.

– No documentation or brainstorming– “Dirty Programming”– Very simple designs, mainly due to the fact that

there was not a lot to work with (2D graphics for example)

•Beginnings

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Evolution of Game Development

• Example of a side scrolling game for a home console

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– Console, Computer, and Arcade become more popular.

– Teams grow to having more people involved (groups of between 5 and 10) to create the games

– Still not much time used for design– Not much documentation– Developers now begin to see effects of

minimal design.

•Popularity Grows

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Evolution of Game Development

• Example of a early single player 3D-game

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Evolution of Game Development

• Video Game Breakthrough– Design becomes more important piece to

game development.– Multiple teams make up video game creation

(sound, graphics, programmers, etc.)– Development broken down into smaller pieces

but still teams are working on big “chunks” of the project.

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Evolution of Game Development

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• Video Game Breakthrough– Design becomes most important

piece to game development.– More teams added to make video games

more realistic and get better results and size of team increases

– More people added speed to the creation of the games and also more insight.

– Breakdown into many pieces.

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Video Game Development Process

• Pre-Production– Pitch needs to get approval– Design document is needed– Prototypes may be necessary– Artists may make preliminary sketches of

different aspects of the game– Design document is most important piece

because it is used throughout the next phases of development as a “living document”

Video Game Development Process

• Production– Most of work gets done in this portion of the

development process– Tons of source code is created and discarded– Sound developers and sound engineers work

together to create sound effects and overall game music

– Features are added and removed constantly and must all be documented

Video Game Development Process

• Production continued– Not uncommon of development of first level of

the game to take up to 12 months to create alone

– Testers are also introduced to project whenever any piece of the game can be run

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Video Game Development Process

• Milestones– Use the idea of milestones to give teams

deadlines on the different pieces of the project– Before most deadlines teams enter “crunch

time”– A lot of extra time is put in by the members of

all the teams on the project during this time.– Burnout

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Video Game Development Process• Testing

– No unit level testing -- heavy reliance on System level test.

– Separate team solely for testing the project– Need to not only carry out tests on new

features but also regression tests.– Regression testing is one of the most

important aspects in game development

– Single change can make a game unplayable

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Video Game Development Process

• Maintenance– Has always been an important aspect of

computer based games– Patches are an easy way to fix game bugs

after shipment– Used to not be as important to console games

but are becoming a more popular way to fix bugs.

– Mods

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– Most games take between 1 and 3 years to complete.

– Dependent on many factors (development platform, amount of assets, genre, COTS, etc)

– Assets is not people power but more reuse of code.

•Duration

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Video Game Development Process

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Engines• It provides the underlying technologies,

simplifies development, and often enables the game to run on multiple platforms such as game consoles and desktop operating systems.

• Core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection, sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, and a scene graph.

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Engines

• Brief History– Started in 1990 with first person shooter

games.– The Doom and Quake engine were first very

popular engines.– Most companies used these popular images

and then created their own characters, levels, etc. to cut down on project time.

– Price can range from $10,000 – $3,750,000

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• Some companies now just create Some companies now just create “middleware” exclusively“middleware” exclusively

• Their goal is to basically “Pre-Invent”Their goal is to basically “Pre-Invent”

• They are creating software that could They are creating software that could possibly be useful in creating gamespossibly be useful in creating games

• This is risky but could show to be This is risky but could show to be rewarding as well.rewarding as well.

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– Designed by Epic Games in 1998– Has been used successfully

in 1st person as well as 3rd person shooter games

– Used for computer as well as console games

– The core of the code is written in C++

– Game play code is written in UnrealScript

•Unreal Engine

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Engines

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Engines

– Similar to java– Object-Oriented– Automatic Garbage Collection– Strong Type-Checking at Compile

Time– Wanted code to be simple and

readable

•Unrealscript

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Engines class TriggerLight expands Light;

//--------------------------------------------------------------// Variables.  

var() float ChangeTime; // Time light takes to change //from on to off.

var() bool bInitiallyOn; // Whether it's initially on.

var() bool bDelayFullOn; // Delay then go full-on.  

var ELightType InitialType; // Initial type of light.

var float InitialBrightness; // Initial brightness.

var float Alpha, Direction;  

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Engines //--------------------------------------------------------------------------

// Engine functions.  

// Called at start of gameplay.

function BeginPlay()

{

// Remember initial light type and set new one.

Disable( 'Tick' ); InitialType = LightType;

InitialBrightness = LightBrightness;

if( bInitiallyOn ) { Alpha = 1.0; Direction = 1.0; }

else { LightType = LT_None; Alpha = 0.0; Direction = -1.0; }

}

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Getting Into the Game

• Why get into game development?– Statistics

• According to ESA (Entertainment Software Association) 60% of all Americans 6 and older play video games.

• Of this 60%, 35% say video games is the most fun activity with 18% saying television is the most fun activity, and 11% saying watching movies is the most fun activity.

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Getting Into the Game

• The average American video game player is 33 years old

• U.S. computer and video game software sales grew four percent in 2005 to $7 billion -- more than doubling of industry software sales since 1996

• The average age of the game buyer is 40 years old.

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Getting Into the Game

• PC game sales took in $970 million in 2006 with console games taking in $13.5 billion, these figures are solely for the US

• $481 million was sold in Canada and $2.7 billion sold in the UK. Everything is on the rise.

• World of Warcraft alone has 8 million subscribers paying $15 per month, that is an estimated $120,000,000 in revenue a month

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• Genres– Action– Based on user being

able to perform actions reflexively in a real-time setting.• Action-Adventure• First-Person Shooter

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– Fighting– Usually involve a user controlled

character against another character (either user or AI controlled). Use various forms of martial arts.• Versus• Beat’ Em Up

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Getting Into the Game

– Role Playing– Becoming very popular

with MMOG.– Allows player to select

own destiny with an extensive storyline. • Strategy Game• Massive Multiplayer

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– Platform Games– This is the earliest genre of

game.– Gradually declining with the

introduction of 3-D graphics.

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Getting Into the Game– Simulations– Very broad genre with simulations

in many different areas.• Pure Simulation• God Games• City-Building Games

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Getting Into the Game

– Sports– Been around for a long

time but still growing– Madden NFL series is

best-selling sports series of all time.

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Getting Into the Game

– Educational– New genre but already experiencing great

results.– Idea is to teach kids while still allowing them

to have fun.

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Getting Into the Game

• Possible New Genre?– University of Toronto student creates a

therapeutic game– Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy, paralyzes a side

of the body– Exercises the weak limbs of the patients body

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Getting Into the Game

• Other Things to Consider– Popularity and Technology constantly growing– Learn new things as you work– Chance to work in a lot of different locations,

even different countries– Comfortable atmospheres– Easy to move up ladder– FUN

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Or Not?

• Game Development Not so Good– Long hours and overtime – Many small gaming companies

don’t last long in the industry– Hard to break into gaming industry– Most games created never make it

to the market– Just don’t like video games

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• Documentation• Testing• Programming• Knowledge in multiple

areas• Introduction of other

processes to game development (mainly waterfall)

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Bibliography

• http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=114

• Salen, K., Zimmerman, E. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals

• http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml

• http://edcorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=717&author=8

• http://unreal.epicgames.com/UnrealScript.htm• http://www.igda.org/breakingin/• http://www.theesa.com/facts/• http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?stor

y=12413

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Bibliography

• http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12358

• http://www.robinlionheart.com/gamedev/genres.xhtml• http://www.gamedev.net/columns/gameengineering/gup/

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