Ian Mallett wrote:
On 10/3/07, *Andre Roberge* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
I can't pretend to speak for Clare... but I think the idea is to
give the students a sense of accomplishment within a short time
frame. Writing a game from scratch can be a daunting proposition
- something near impossible to have a bunch of budding programmers
do in a short time.
I remember starting Pygame like that :-)
However, having students start with a game skeleton, and letting
them use their creativity to "fill in the blank" could result in
something both doable in a reasonable time and fun to do.
I think Pygame is simple enough that if Clare is familiar with it,
she could easily teach them. However, the benefits of a game shell
are numerous. I don't know of such a thing though--game skeletons
tend to be specific to the game and not particularly adaptable to
various genres.
I think that's why Clare was asking for multiple frameworks to cover
each genre.
My brother would like to learn programming in a similar way, though,
if possible... Is there one? I'm interested as well.
Sure, but to sufficiently abstract a game framework to where it can be
used for multiple genres complicates it to the point where learning its
nuances may be more time-consuming than just starting from scratch, I think.
But I'm sure there's a brilliant programmer out there somewhere who
could make it work and have it make sense.
I think tutorials that start with very rigid frameworks of only a
certain genre and then expand until you're hand-coding every facet of
the game would be a fantastic way to learn game development. Learn the
interesting part, and then learn how to mold the parts that take longer
to reflect results quickly to what you need, since you already know how
the upper level of the framework works.
An ogre-like layer-by-layer approach. (Shrek reference, not the OGRE
software)
As a teacher at heart, I fully support Clare's idea and wish I
could help in a timely fashion.
As do I.
I think I have enough time to be of at least a little bit of help, but
Clare never replied to me.
Not sure why that is. Perhaps my message was lost somewhere along the
way. (I replied off-list, which is why none of you got the message :) )
André
Ian
-Luke
