Jed Gibbs – e-mail:jednet@mac.com
07970 821 877 (orange mobile)

Computer Games Genres

2pm - 4pm CC026
Starting Wednesday 1st March 2006

1st March 2006
Discussion of genres

Genres are a way of categorising the thousands of games into a taxonomy of groups and sub-groups of similar gaming experiences.

These genres are too often loosely defined with wide differences of opinion about how many genres exist and how to fit specific games into the categories. When does a 'racing' game becomes so realistic in its interface and real-world physics as to become a 'simulation' of driving? At what point does a first person shooter (FPS) which includes some form of character-building cross the line into a role playing game (RPG)?

Modern games can be complex, exploiting faster processors and graphics cards to aspire to more than one genre experience. The counter argument to that is that games become more expensive to produce with higher production values, so companies may choose to invest in tried and proven styles of game which are easier to market to specific gamers by using the shorthand of placing the game within an existing successful genre.

genres at Wikipedia

computer games genres at Wikipedia

Taxonomy of Computer Games

Genre and the Video Game

ihobo

8th March 2006
History of consoles and games

timeline below shows US console availability (from wikipedia)

computer games at Wikipedia

14th March 2006
Donna Bevan

research strategies

21st March 2006
Donna Bevan

library walk round

29th March 2006
Introducing briefs for Essay and Presentation

The return of the Game Cube.

26th April 2006
The early years of videogaming

Looking at the original arcade games and running early games using mame emulators on Mac, Windows and *nix computers.

3rd May 2006

Last session with Jed. Reviewing the briefs and discussing your development so far - individual tutorial help as required. Reviewing last week's session on using mame emulators.

BA (Hons) Foundation Year 0
Animation Specialism 2

10am - 1pm and 2pm-5pm Mac Suite, Z Block at City College
Starting Friday 10th February 2006

Course Schedule

BA (Hons) Design Studies
Creative Technologies Unit

2pm-5pm Andrews Area 5
Starting Thursday 26th October 2005

Collaborative Web Design

Assignment 2

Course schedule

BA (Hons) Interior Design (Decoration)
Creative Technology Unit DES214

10am-1pm Andrews Area 5
Starting Wednesday 5th October 2005

An introduction to the range of information technologies crucial to current design processes. Internet, multimedia and presentation software will be examined together with communications technologies.

Course schedule

BA (Hons) Product Design with Marketing
Design Studies - Creative Technologies

1pm - 2pm Andrews Area 9
Starting Thursday 6th October 2005
2 groups, alternating weeks

6th/13th October 2005
An introduction to Adobe Photoshop. Compositing elements from one image onto another. Selection using the Magic Wand tool. Blending elements into their background using Layer Masks.

Using the Hue & Saturation Tool (Ctrl U) to change selective colours.

20th/27th October 2005
Photoshop brushes, colour, the clone tool, adding text and layer effects.

Rhino3d (free functional demo available for download).

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