

Coursera course on game development using Python (first homework due tomorrow) - bcjordan
https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython

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10098
I think Coursera needs to do a course on game engine architecture with real-
world examples (idtech, ogre).

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freehunter
The problem that I see with that is, these engines are difficult to do in one
class. Generally, learning that is a full two-year program involving
programming, logic, math, 3D design, etc. Using 3D engines gets difficult to
teach in a 7 week course unless the student already knows quite a bit.

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jiggy2011
Should be enough time to understand and implement a basic raycasting engine
ala Wolf3D/Doom though.

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zemanel
well, just signed up.

My first programming experiences were actually small games for the TI-83, a
humble dream soccer and a bowling game.

PC's were very expensive around '95, a fact which also lead me to take
computer science for having access to them at school and obviously, gaming :-)
Warcraft, Dune 2, Lost Vikings and the sorts.

After my first job and subsequently, that fascination on developing games
faded away under other things like e-commerce, corporate applications and
messing with Linux also sinked a large deal of my spare time etc but haven't
yet lost hope of finding a way into it.

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jiggy2011
First homework due tomorrow!

That brings back some unpleasant memories. When I was a CS undergrad something
the professors would enjoy doing was assigning problem sets on the very first
lecture of a module that were deliverable by the next lecture (often the next
day). I assume it was a mechanism for figuring out people's learning rates.

Of course it was great fun beginning a new term and having 2 or 3 such classes
on the first day.

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zachgalant
If you really want to learn game development on the web, you should check out
<http://codehs.com>

You learn how to make games that run in HTML5 Canvas using JavaScript, and
there are custom libraries that make graphics and user interaction much easier
to deal with.

Also, you can take the class at your own pace, so no need to worry about
artificial deadlines.

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nosecreek
It looks like Udacity is doing a similar course in the new year:
<http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs255/CourseRev/1>

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tangue
Wow, it seems that they're generating js + canvas games straight from Python
(the tool used in the course is <http://www.codeskulptor.org/> ). Never heard
of it before

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stargazer-3
They seem to have built it by themselves this summer.

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tangue
Okay, I had a look and it and its clearly for educational purposes only.
Indeed this course is more a "fun" introduction to programming ("what's a
function" ... ) than a real course on building games.

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ekianjo
In the recent news about the course, a headline reads: "Make a student
tutorial video, Win an iPad"
([https://class.coursera.org/interactivepython-2012-001/class/...](https://class.coursera.org/interactivepython-2012-001/class/index))
- Sounds wierd to give a non-programmable device to someone who is following a
course on interactive programming. Someone did not get the point.

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10098
In what universe is iPad non-programmable?

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ekianjo
Try to write a python script and run it natively on the iPad, and we'll talk
again if we live in the same universe.

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10098
I don't follow. Is Python the only programming language available? Is
programmability determined by a device's ability to run python scripts
natively?

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ekianjo
That's an example. On any open device you can program in any language. There
are no restrictions. The iPad is a walled garden and there are clear limits to
what you can envision doing, embedded in the way it is designed and locked
down.

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ichinaski
Great. Just signed up. Anyone knows of a similar courses/tutorials for C++
Game dev?

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VinzO
I am also very interested, but could not find this kind of course

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eduardchil
Almost missed that, thx.

