Computer Games Course Homepage

Course Description:: This course will explore the algorithms, data structures, and tricks used to program computer video games. We will be programming in Java and focussing on arcade-style video games (new and "classic") rather than text-based adventures or strategy games such as chess.
FINALS WEEK: Here is a list of topics for the final exam (which is on Thursday, May 10, 8:00AM). I will be available for office hours during finals week on Monday, May 7 from 11AM-2PM and on Wednesday, May 9 from Noon-3PM.
Course Syllabus
Homework Assignments
Class Demos: This is a link to a directory of class demos stored by date. They are not intended to be self-explanatory (although they might sometimes be), but rather are created as visual aids to the lectures. I'm making them available here so you can play with them and study the examples further after class. In other words, I can't imagine how you would take intelligent notes on some of this stuff, so here are my "animated notes".
Student Gallery: See selections of student work.
Neat Sites: This page contains links to various interesting web sites related to Computer Game programming.
Exam 2 (On-line exam): The second exam will be on the computer. Here is a study guide, but it you want a rough idea of what such an exam is like, here's the exam from a couple of years ago. We studied different topics that year, so some of these questions might not seem familiar.

Raycasting: This seems to be a very nice tutorial on Ray-Casting. In fact, this is just a piece of a large site about Game Programming run by F. Permadi.
Graphics options: You can create GIF images by using GIMP or with Raytracing. An easier, but less powerful tool is Icon Editor.
Java on the Brain: Karl Hoernell is a graduate student in Sweden who writes some very nice Java games. While that would be worth knowing just by itself, he makes it even better by putting them up on a beautiful website with lots of background commentary regarding game design and technical problems and solutions. He wrote the Iceblox game which we discussed in class.
Running Java Programs: A quick summary of how to compile and run Java applications and applets.
Java 1.2 API: The Java API (Application Programmer Interface) specifies all of the methods of all of the classes built-in to Java. The API Help might be a good place to start if you find this too confusing. You also have a piece of the Java 1.0 API available in the back of your textbook (Appendix B).

This site created and maintained by Dr. Michael C. Slattery of Marquette University.
You can contact me at mikes (a) mscs.mu.edu.