Description
At the end of this short course you'll have programmed your first game. You'll learn gameplay development fundamentals by really doing it – writing and running real code on your own machine.Each step of the course has the source code attached exactly as it should look at that time (click "View Resources" then "Downloadable Resources"), for you to compare to or pick up from, so you can't get stuck!
Who this course is for:
This is for anyone who wants a quick but thorough introduction to simple game programming in a way that doesn't require any special software, download, or installation
If you've had at least a little exposure to generic programming concepts like variables, functions, and if-statements you'll have an advantage, however in case you've never heard those terms they're explained briefly as they come up
Although this a uses JavaScript and HTML5, it is not intended for someone who is focused on learning HTML5/JS for web page design
What you will learn
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Display, position, and move filled shapes for retro and prototype gameplay
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Move a ball around your game space such that it bounces off boundaries
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Handle real-time mouse input
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Detect and respond to simple collisions
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Program very basic artificial intelligence
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Keep and display score during play
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Understand the subtle, key difference between a classic game in this style which is fun to play versus one that isn't
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Define and code a win condition and end state for your game
Requirements
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Very early on students will need to show file extensions in their operating system (explained briefly in the video)
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If a plain text editor is available that has programming features like line numbers and auto-indent (ex. Notepad++ on PC, TextWrangler on Mac) that may be handy but is not necessary, as a generic text editor like Notepad or TextEdit will work fine for a program of this size
