research-article

Teaching game programming using XNA

Authors:

Joe Linhoff,

Amber SettleAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '08: Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

Pages 250 - 254

https://doi.org/10.1145/1384271.1384338

Published: 30 June 2008 Publication History

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Abstract

As educators work to expand the audience interested in computer science, computer gaming programs have blossomed at a variety of educational institutions. Educators are coming to recognize that gaming is a compelling way to motivate students to learn challenging technical concepts such as programming, software engineering, algorithms, and project management. At the core of many gaming programs are game development courses, which teach technical aspects about software development in a motivating environment. While many game development courses share a common goal, the structure and goals of game development courses can be quite diverse. We describe a game development course that uses the XNA platform to allow a heterogeneous group of students to gain experience in all aspects of console game creation, an approach we believe has some interesting pedagogical benefits.

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Cited By

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Sáez‐López JGonzález‐Calero JCózar‐Gutierrez Rdel Olmo‐Muñoz J(2023)Scratch and unity design in elementary education: A study in initial teacher trainingJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1281539:5(1528-1538)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2023
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Amador GGomes ASantos BDischler J(2016)A video games technologies courseProceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics: Education Papers10.5555/3059068.3059077(45-48)Online publication date: 9-May-2016
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Stephenson BJames MBrooke NAycock JBoisvert DZilora S(2016)An Industrial Partnership Game Development Capstone CourseProceedings of the 17th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education10.1145/2978192.2978214(136-141)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2016
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Teaching game programming using XNA

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Reviews

Reviewer: Arthur Gittleman

The DePaul College of Computing and Digital Media is one of the largest of its kind in the US. The computer game development program, the second largest in the college, has over 150 majors. The console game development environments course, described here, is not required, but can be taken by any student in the game development program, which has two tracks: the standard concentration and a game programming concentration. The course uses the Microsoft XNA platform to allow a diverse group of students to encounter all aspects of console game creation. The prerequisite for the course is a freshman-level course in game design that does not require any programming. Programming is deemphasized by giving students sample programs and encouraging them to share code. An important feature of the course is using the content pipeline provided with XNA that facilitates the adding of authored content to games. Advanced game development is hindered when students cannot create content that reflects their abilities. This lack lowers morale and the opportunity for success in the game industry. All course tools except Maya are free for students. Maya is the primary modeling and animation tool and, because of its complexity, detailed instructions are given for creating acceptable content. (An open-source alternative to Maya is Blender.) The course is divided into eight modules that are listed with brief descriptions. Grading requirements are carefully described. The results were positive, with students with programming backgrounds doing a bit better than those without, a difference Linhoff and Settle will try to minimize in the future. The experience was good for both groups: programmers learned how to create models, animations, and sounds, while nonprogrammers wrote scripts, modified code, and used the content pipeline. One of the goals of this course is to improve the content quality of more advanced courses. In the future, Linhoff and Settle plan to split this course into two courses, one slightly more introductory, and the other, run later in the curriculum, more advanced. DePaul received an XNA lab grant from Microsoft that provided Xbox 360 consoles. However, XNA games will run on a Windows PC and do not require game consoles, so this course would also be appropriate for teaching Windows game development using XNA. Linhoff and Settle provide good justification for their course and give useful details regarding its implementation. DePaul has been successful in attracting students, and game development is clearly a popular program. The course described here would also be attractive in less ambitious programs and, as is planned at DePaul, could lead to further courses in XNA game development. Online Computing Reviews Service

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ITiCSE '08: Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

June 2008

394 pages

ISBN:9781605580784

DOI:10.1145/1384271

Conference Chairs:
June Amillo
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
,
Cary Laxer
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Ernestina Menasalvas
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
,
Alison Young
Unitec, New Zealand

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 40, Issue 3
ITiCSE '08
September 2008
362 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/1597849
Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 June 2008

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ITiCSE '08: 13th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 30 - July 2, 2008

Madrid, Spain

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ITiCSE '08 Paper Acceptance Rate 60 of 150 submissions, 40%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

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Cited By

View all

Sáez‐López JGonzález‐Calero JCózar‐Gutierrez Rdel Olmo‐Muñoz J(2023)Scratch and unity design in elementary education: A study in initial teacher trainingJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1281539:5(1528-1538)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12815
Amador GGomes ASantos BDischler J(2016)A video games technologies courseProceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics: Education Papers10.5555/3059068.3059077(45-48)Online publication date: 9-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3059068.3059077
Stephenson BJames MBrooke NAycock JBoisvert DZilora S(2016)An Industrial Partnership Game Development Capstone CourseProceedings of the 17th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education10.1145/2978192.2978214(136-141)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2978192.2978214
Dickson PDagienė VSchulte CJevsikova T(2015)Using Unity to Teach Game DevelopmentProceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/2729094.2742591(75-80)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2729094.2742591
Roden TLeGrand RCamp TTymann PDougherty JNagel K(2013)Growing a computer science program with a focus on game developmentProceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/2445196.2445362(555-560)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2445196.2445362
McGill M(2012)The Curriculum Planning Process for Undergraduate Game Degree Programs in the United Kingdom and United StatesACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/2160547.216055012:2(1-47)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2160547.2160550
Harris J(2011)Teaching game programming using XNAJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/2038836.203886127:2(174-181)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2038836.2038861
Wang AWu B(2011)Using game development to teach software architectureInternational Journal of Computer Games Technology10.1155/2011/9208732011(4-4)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2011
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Wang A(2011)Extensive Evaluation of Using a Game Project in a Software Architecture CourseACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/1921607.192161211:1(1-28)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1921607.1921612
Doss KJuarez VVincent DDoerschuk PLiu J(2011)Work in progress -- A survey of popular game creation platforms used for computing educationProceedings of the 2011 Frontiers in Education Conference10.1109/FIE.2011.6143110(F1H-1-1-F1H-2)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/FIE.2011.6143110
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