jonbho

Month: January, 2013

Gamecrash: writing games using “C without pointers”!

The concept for the Gamecrash course was clear from the first moment: really focused course to get people to actually learn to develop games in one week. Focus on fundamentals, such that people learn the core skills. But be sure to create an actual game – this is not a theory-only course, we need results! Of course you can’t write the latest advanced 3D consoles first-person-shooter with amazing AI in a week. But the core game-development skills and the skills to write 2D action/puzzle games can definitely be taught in one week, and they can be the best foundation on which to build future knowledge for more complex types of games (3D, etc…).

It’s clear that if you want to create a one-week course that really gets students to the “next level” you are going to have to be very precise on what things you want to cover and which ones you want to leave out. You have to make sure the whole contents are a solid structure that holds itself together well, that can be used without any extra content to actually develop games, and which can later become a great base upon which to build a full professional career if students want to pursue that road.

A key question here was the base language and technology to use. There were several options: most professional games are done using C/C++, but more and more frameworks and libraries allow you to write games in Javascript or C#. Also, languages such as Python are easier to pick up than C/C++, maybe we should go that way?

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Gamecrash Austin course venue & hotel discount

Two important pieces of news: we have changed the venue for the course to a hotel right next to the Fickett center where the course was initially going to take place.

This is the hotel:

Marriott Fairfield Inn and Suites Austin North | Parmer Lane
12536 N. IH35, AUSTIN TX 78753
T 512.687.6315 F 512.833.9656
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/auspl-fairfield-inn-and-suites-austin-north-parmer-lane/

The hotel and its installations are great, and the second important piece of news, we have been able to secure a great room rate ($85 per night!) for course attendees. We will send you the discount code so that you can book your room upon registering for the course.

Several people from Austin and other places have already registered, hope to see you there!

Stirring up some interest for the Austin Game Crash course

We’ve started announcing the Game Crash bootcamp due on February 18th in Austin, and we’re finding there’s quite a lot of interest out there! Here are some selected reactions and questions:

“I’m very interested, in fact I’m just a few clicks away from signing up, but I wanted to check and see if the cost of the hotel is included in the course registration fee, or if we have to make our own arrangements. Thanks!”

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