Game Coding

Details: Written by George Burdo George Burdo; Published: 23 May 2016 23 May 2016

Details

This is a college style course that introduces students to programming games using Java. Completion of the Introduction to Coding is a requirement. This year however, we will continue leaning the Java language which was started last year, and then transition to Game Programming.

General Info

All students taking this course should have completed the prior class (Intro to Coding) with a grade of at least a "C". We will start the year with some review, and then continue where the prior year ended.

Documents

Course Description - provides the basic narrative description of the class along with the tentative syllabus. This, along with the documents below, form a complete outline of the class for the semester.

Class Rules - This covers many topic areas including: behavior, attendance, grading, homework, and more. This paper needs to be signed by both the student and their parent/guardian. This, along with the AUP below, are required each semester before any computer based work can be undertaken.

Responsible & Acceptable Use Policy is required of all students (and staff) before usage of any district computer that is connected to the Internet. All my classes will be using computers during the semester, therefore this district document is required. Students agree to this document when they first signon to their District email account, and again each time their password is reset.

Software

The software listed below are the main programs that will be used for this course. Additional programs are available, but will likely not see much usage. All the the applications listed on this page are available for free download, and most are open source.

It is advisable to follow the posted links as there are sites out there that also provide these programs, but may have infected files. None of the sites listed here will require payment for download or use of the programs, though they may have a page soliciting for donations. There may also be commercial websites listed, but in those cases, I have listed a disclaimer and the link will take you specifically to the page of the free program listed.

During the installation of any program, problems may occur and neither myself, nor the school can be held responsible. Again, please download from known sources. Every year someone just does a web search and seems to find a virus infected version, sometimes the virus is so bad that all that can be done is to reinstall the entire system.

Eclipse IDE is an integrated development environment (IDE) used in computer programming, and is the most widely used Java IDE. It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment. Eclipse is written mostly in Java and its primary use is for developing Java applications, but it may also be used to develop applications in other programming languages via plug-ins, including Ada, ABAP, C, C++, C#, Clojure, COBOL, D, Erlang, Fortran, Groovy, Haskell, JavaScript, Julia, Lasso, Lua, NATURAL, Perl, PHP, Prolog, Python, R, Ruby (including Ruby on Rails framework), Rust, Scala, and Scheme. It can also be used to develop documents with LaTeX (via a TeXlipse plug-in) and packages for the software Mathematica.

https://www.eclipse.org

LibreOffice is a powerful office suite; its clean interface and powerful tools let you unleash your creativity and grow your productivity. LibreOffice embeds several applications that make it the most powerful Free & Open Source Office suite on the market: Writer, the word processor, Calc, the spreasheet application, Impress, the presentation engine, Draw, our drawing and flowcharting application, Base, our database and database frontend, and Math for editing mathematics.

www.libreoffice.org

Foxit Reader is a small, lightning fast, and feature rich PDF viewer which allows you to create (free PDF creation), open, view, sign, and print any PDF file. Foxit Reader is built upon the industry’s fastest and most accurate (high fidelity) PDF rendering engine, providing users with the best PDF viewing and printing experience. Available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

NOTE: This is a commercial website which contains other programs for which you need to pay. Generally, you only need the reader which is a free program, and the link below will take you directly to the page for the free reader.

www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader/

Chrome is a fast, simple, and secure web browser, built for the modern web.

NOTE: This is a commercial website offering a free program. Additional plugins are available for this browser, some of which are free and others which carry a charge. Be sure you know what you add to this browser.