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Introduction to Game Development

Faculty of Mathematics and Physics

Charles University, Prague

Vojtěch Černý

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What genres do games have?

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What is a game?

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What is a game?

  • A series of meaningful choices. – Sid Meier
  • Voluntary engagement in unnecessary obstacles. – Jane McGonigal
  • A rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable. – Jesper Juul
  • An entertaining activity governed by rules where you try to reach a goal. – class of 2022

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Prices of Game Development

GTA V (2013)

  • $265M (total cost)
  • $137M (dev. cost)
  • $128M (marketing)

CoD: MW2 (2009)

  • $250M (total cost)
  • $50M (dev. cost)
  • $200M (marketing)

(prices unadjusted for inflation)

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Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

  • $313M (total cost)
  • 8M pre-orders (payed itself)

KC:D (2018)

  • $36.5M (total cost)
  • 1M sold copies = break-even

Star Citizen (?)

  • $430M+ (funding)

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Prices of Movie Production

  • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: $378M
  • Avengers: Endgame: $356M
  • The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies: $250M
  • Avatar: $237M
  • Titanic: $200M
  • Terminator 2: Judgement Day: $94M
  • Ben Hur: $15M

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(prices unadjusted for inflation)

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Why does it cost so much?

  • Game design
    • Rules
    • Core mechanics
    • Game loops
  • Code
    • System/engine
    • Game code
    • Tools
  • Assets
    • Graphics
    • 3D models,
    • Animations
    • Sounds / Music
    • Game levels
    • Story
    • ...

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https://twitter.com/RedDead2Info/status/1051652882515324929

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The effects of games

  • Tetris effect
  • Super Mario effect

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A lot of roles

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A lot of roles

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Making games is very complicated

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It wasn‘t always like this...

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Pitfall (1982)

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Nidhogg (2014)

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The rise of the indie game

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What is an indie game?

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Indie games

  • A big rise from ~2005
  • Independent development
    • Small teams / individuals
    • No longer „the bigger the better“
    • Creative freedom
    • More innovation
  • Hard to get noticed?

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How do you come up with an idea?

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A bunch of indie games

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What is the opposite of an indie game?

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How do they do it?

  • Engines!

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Game Engine

  • „Universal“ game creation framework
  • Contains common functionalities for games

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Common engine capabilities

  • Renderer
  • Simulation
  • Physics
  • Network
  • Audio
  • Scripting
  • Asset management
  • Level Editor

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Engines in the wild

Commercial:

  • Unity
  • Unreal Engine 4
  • Source
  • CryEngine

In-house:

  • EA: Frostbite
  • Rockstar: RAGE
  • Bethesda
    • Creation (Skyrim, Fallout 4)
    • id Tech 7 (Doom Eternal)
  • Ubisoft
    • Anvil (AC, Ghost Recon Wildlands)
    • Dunia (Far Cry)
    • Disrupt (Watch Dogs)
    • Snowdrop (Division)

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Game Engine

Advantages

  • Provides boilerplate
  • Major systems implemented
  • Has editor
  • Manages assets
  • Help & Tutorials
  • Multiplatform support

Disadvantages

  • Updates may break your game
  • Access to source?
  • May be inefficient for your game
  • Bugs of other people

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Digital games

Games for which an engine is useful

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Unity engine

  • Released in 2005
  • Today popular and multiplatform
  • Written in C++, scripting in C#
  • Easy to use
  • Free (for low revenue) or paid
  • Good for prototyping and small games
  • Closed source

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Example engine features

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Editor

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Animation

  • Show movement

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3D Animation

  • Skeletons

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Collision detection

  • Intersects / collides between any objects?
  • Act upon it correctly
  • Efficiently and robustly

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Rendering

  • Rendering a 3D world into screen space
  • Cameras
  • Lighting, raytracing, etc.

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Lightning & Shadows

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Takeaways

  • What engines are
  • Engines are your friend
    • Except when they‘re not

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  • They help you not reinvent wheels
  • Perhaps daunting at first sight
  • Bugs!

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About this course

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What‘s this course?

  • Quick hands-on intro to game-development
    • Design
    • Development
    • Feedback and tuning

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„Absolute basics of most Gamedev MSc courses“

  • Get a head start for the MSc programme!

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Course structure

  • Lectures
    • Different parts of game dev
    • Guest lecturers

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  • Labs - 3 projects
    • Project A – design doc
    • Project B – platformer
    • Project C – another platformer or something else

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People behind GameDev

  • Vojta Černý
  • Lukáš Kolek
  • Karel Vlachovský
  • Martin Kahoun
  • ...

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Prepare for tough work!

  • All HW is mandatory
  • All HW must be submitted on time
    • Exceptions for important reasons dealt with individually
  • HW may be assigned on lecture, don‘t skip them
  • Deadline for HW can be as short as 5 days
  • Journal entries on itch.io
  • Possible teamwork (further in the course)

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Formal Requirements

  • Lab credit (zápočet)
    • Fullfill all HW and projects

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  • Exam
    • Mixed written-oral
    • Questions about knowledge from the lectures and discussion about the projects (mainly Project C)

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Rewards

  • Wide knowledge
  • You will know lots about Gamedev
  • Much easier time to study Game Development Master course
    • You‘ll know how the courses fit together upfront

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GameJAM

  • Make a game in 48 hours
  • In person, at MFF
  • Highly recommended to attend
    • Redeemable credits for MSc course

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  • 22nd of April!

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See you around!