04-801-R4   Game Mechanics: Simulation

Course description

This module “mini” covers one of the areas of game development: simulation. Examples of simulation systems are the traffic in a city, weather, or non-player characters’ needs. This is a programming-focused project module in which students work in groups, come up with ideas and designs for a simulation system, and implement a prototype. Project work in this module simulates a real-world development environment with iterative sprints. In ongoing project meetings, students will present their progress, discuss possible conceptual options and background research, justify their decisions, and provide further reasoning on things like the integration with an overall game.

Learning objectives

Students will:

• Understand concepts and technology of one of several major game engine components (i.e., simulation)
• Understand the differences between academic and military simulations (e.g., with respect to accuracy and real-time requirements) and the consequences for algorithm/system design
• Learn major concepts such as iterative heartbeat management, level-of-detail handling, and consistency management
• Understand and take into consideration the interplay with an overall game system
• Be able to apply the above knowledge to design and implement a working simulation system
• Train to independently research, analyze, and compare related work and other potential solutions, and draw conclusions for their own work/approaches
• Improve their ability to judge time estimates for creative as well as technical work tasks
• Train sprint-based development work and improve their teamwork, communication, and presentation skills through extensive hands-on project work
• Train creativity techniques like brainstorming

Content details

1-2 initial lectures provide an overview of formal issues like course structure and group work, expected learning outcomes and assessment, etc., and an introduction to world simulation, including general principles of representation and execution of rules and mechanics, integration issues, real-time issues, realism vs. fun, level-of-detail simulation approaches, consistency management, etc. The specific semester’s topic (e.g., traffic in a city, weather, or non-player characters’ needs) is introduced as well as the programming/development environment.

Projects are realized in groups of 3-4 students and include:

• Brainstorming about, and proposing an interesting simulation system within the specific semester’s topic
• Researching background material
• Justifying their approach/solution with an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of potential solutions
• Reasoning about overall game integration
• Designing the system architecture
• Implementation (series of mini sprints)
• Ongoing progress presentations and a final presentation

Prerequisites

Basic Programming (data structures/algorithms)

Recommended but not required: 04-800-Q Games and Entrepreneurship

Faculty

Alexander Nareyek