teaching
CPSC 86
Games Systems: Platforms, Programs & Power (F2026)
overview | logistics | schedule | edstem | assignments | resources
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Lab: Mon 1:05-2:35pm (Martin 313)
Office Hours: Tue 1:15-2:15pm and Thu 11:15am-12:15pm and by appointment (Martin 234)
Platform Study Texts
- 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10. Montfort, Baudoin, Bell, Bogost, Douglass, Marino, Mateas, Reas, Sample, and Vawter. MIT Press. 2012.
- Racing the Beam. Montfort and Bogost. MIT Press. 2009.
- I am Error. Altice. MIT Press. 2015.
- Game Programming Patterns. Nystrom. 2014.
- Making Games for the Atari 2600. Hugg. 2018.
- Making Games for the NES. Hugg. 2018.
- Programming in Lua. 3rd or 4th Edition. Roberto Ierusalimschy. 2016.
- Projects (50%): four projects (hack/remake/demake/make)
- Assignments (25%): small programming assignments and homework
- Presentations (12.5%): leading in-class discussions including programming patterns
- Participation (12.5%): journal and discussion (every class)
- Participate. There will be myriad opportunities: in class, lab, google docs, github, dropbox paper, excalidraw, office hours, edstem.
- When reading, studying, and listening, be active by taking notes and asking questions.
- Visit the professor's drop-in office hours.
- Attend class & be on time (whenever possible given COVID reality).
- Make sure to have read the required reading BEFORE class.
- Start all the assignments early.
- Check EdStem & this class website.
- Be respectful of your fellow classmates; my rule of thumb for judging whether a response is worthwhile: Is it Nice? Is it True? Is it Necessary? Pick at least two.
- Adhere to the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct for the Association for Computing Machinery.
- Cooperate carefully and thoughtfully:
- Work within your pair & pod, and visit drop-in hours, before seeking help beyond.
- Credit work, including all sources you used from the web, other books, etc.
- Sharing ideas is encouraged, but blatantly copying work without attribution will be treated as scholastic dishonesty and receive no credit.
- Be prepared to demonstrate the theory of your program (Peter Naur).
- Keep your work backed-up and private.