Computer Science CS 370
Computer Game Design
Spring 2003

Course materials

• Frequently asked questions
• Lecture Notes
• Homework Assignments
• How to turn in your final project

• Interactive Fiction  Hall of Fame
• Sims Objects Hall of Fame
  

Communications:

• Check the class newsgroup nwu.school.meas.class.cs-370 on the server news.it.northwestern.edu for announcements, help, and discussions.
• To submit homework assignments, please use the mailing list cs370-staff@cs.northwestern.edu.
• Please remember to check this web site often for updates, and use the reload command on your browser to ensure that you are receiving the most up-to-date information.  
• Important note: Learning design skills is often best done in a group setting, where problems that arise during the design process are discussed in a studio setting.   Part of class time will be devoted to discussing design problems that you are finding in doing homework assignments, so please bring partial solutions and ideas to discuss to class.  It will save time if you bring in your code on a floppy disk, zip disk, or CD rather than relying on network connections, so we can look at it together on-screen.
• For some purposes we will also be using Northwestern's Blackboard course management system.  You can view this web site from within Blackboard or go directly to it, but you will only be able to view your grades and download certain materials from within Blackboard. 

General Resources

• Chris Crawford's library.  His classic book, The Art of Computer Game Design is available on-line, as well as back issues of journals he has been involved in.  Highly recommended.

• The Gamasutra web site provides an interesting mix of articles on game design issues.  

• The Frotz interpreter we are using can be found here.
• The Inform compiler we are using can be found here.  Please look carefully at the tutorials on this page, including the Inform Beginner's Guide (beta locally mirrored here); they will be helpful.  There are also links to many other interactive fiction resources from here.  
• The Inform Designer's manual is required reading to use it effectively, and contains a wealth of insights into the design of interactive fiction that should be read by anyone who wants to write interactive fiction.  The Acrobat version of the 4th edition is locally mirrored here.  While we strongly recommend using the 4th edition, for historical purposes an on-line hypertext of the 3rd edition starts here.
• There's also a very interesting, community-based Inform Developer's Guide. It archives many IF/Inform tips and tricks, including an extensive tutorial on NPC development.
• Studying the source code for sample Inform games written in it is highly recommended.  Probably the simplest way to run Inform is from a shell under gnuemacs.  There is even an inform-mode for gnuemacs, if you scout around for it.
• The Twonky Island story bible, source code, and .Z5 file are on-line.

Age of Kings resources:

• Microsoft's Age of Kings site.
• Ensemble Studio's Age of Kings site.  The Age of Kings AI Editor can be downloaded from there.
• Age of Kings has spawned many fan sites, such as this one.  

The Sims/Edith resources:

• You will need the Transmogifier in addition to Edith, to change the appearance and catalog entries for your objects. 
• The current version of the Joy Booth can be downloaded from here.  
• Some documentation on the Edith virtual machine and programming environment for The Sims can be found in this document.  
• The best objects for The Sims developed by last year's class can be downloaded from here.
• Some neat videos, including more on pie menus, Edith, and other goodies, are here.

Last edited 6/10/03 by RZ
Please send suggestions to cs370-staff@cs.nwu.edu.
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