Course syllabus for Design and construction of digital games

Course syllabus adopted 2023-02-02 by Head of Programme (or corresponding).

Overview

  • Swedish nameDesign och konstruktion av datorspel
  • CodeDAT510
  • Credits7.5 Credits
  • OwnerTKITE
  • Education cycleFirst-cycle
  • Main field of studyComputer Science and Engineering, Software Engineering
  • ThemeMTS 3 c
  • DepartmentCOMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
  • GradingTH - Pass with distinction (5), Pass with credit (4), Pass (3), Fail

Course round 1

  • Teaching language English
  • Application code 52111
  • Maximum participants45
  • Minimum participants5
  • Open for exchange studentsNo
  • Only students with the course round in the programme overview.

Credit distribution

0121 Written and oral assignments 7.5 c
Grading: TH		 7.5 c

In programmes

Examiner

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Eligibility

General entry requirements for bachelor's level (first cycle)
Applicants enrolled in a programme at Chalmers where the course is included in the study programme are exempted from fulfilling the requirements above.

Specific entry requirements

The same as for the programme that owns the course.
Applicants enrolled in a programme at Chalmers where the course is included in the study programme are exempted from fulfilling the requirements above.

Course specific prerequisites

Students taking this course are expected to have experience in software development, equivalent to having completed a course of at least five credits in an imperative programming language such as Java, C# or Python. 

Aim

Game development has become an important part of the modern digital economy. The industry is huge, diverse, and complicated. This course will provide a grounding in design, development and evaluation with the intention of giving students the necessary framework to create playable prototype games of their own.

Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to)

Knowledge and understanding
  • Identify game accessibility issues and incorporate solutions
  • Document a game design against budgetary and time constraints
  • Identify an audience for which to design a game

Skills and abilities
  • Design an experiential framework for a game
  • Make use of standard game design frameworks
  • Incorporate game assets
  • Make effective use of game development frameworks
  • Develop effective prototypes of a game design
Judgement ability and approach
  • Effectively define success criteria against which a game should be assessed
  • Analyze playability tests conducted with actual users
  • Iteratively evaluate game goals against user feedback

Content

This course is divided into three successive parts. These parts cover design, construction and evaluation of games. The largest part will be given to game development in Unity or Unreal.

The first part is about the topic of game design. It will cover requirements gathering and specification: what do you want a game to do; for whom are you designing a game; and what does success look like? Students on this course will develop the design documentation for their own game as a deliverable for the first part.

The second part will take that design documentation and turn it into an prototype using Unreal or Unity. A playable demo of a game design is produced here.

The third part takes the prototype created in the previous part and focuses on playtesting. This will include ensuring accessibility for an audience that includes disabled gamers. Together those are the deliverable for the final part of the course.

Each part will also introduce theoretical concepts through lectures, academic papers, books, and professional literature.  

Organisation

Each part will have a lecture series in which key concepts are introduced, along with practical hands-on workshops where the key actionable skills are taught. Each part has academic and professional reading with which students are expected to become familiar. 

Literature

Course literature will be announced at the latest 8 weeks prior to the start of the course.

Examination including compulsory elements

The examination takes place in two parts. Partly, group work is assessed. Each student also submits an individually written report for assessment. The assessments are the basis for the individual grading.

The course examiner may assess individual students in other ways than what is stated above if there are special reasons for doing so, for example if a student has a decision from Chalmers on educational support due to disability.