Game programming — The ‘Why’, ‘What’ and ‘How’ with Graphics Objects.
Lakshmi Prayaga · The Journal of Object Technology · 2005
Game Programming is the latest buzz word in the computer science educational curriculum.Many universities across the world are offering complete CS degree programs in game programming while others such as the Art institute of Portland have summer camps for teens in game programming (Ai of Portland, 2005).This brings us to three interesting questions, The " Why", "What" and "How" of game programming.This paper serves the purpose of analyzing these questions within the context of a Visual basic.Net application.A discussion on the choice of Visual Basic .Net as the environment to create and manipulate the objects in the game is also presented.The code used is also included in the paper.GAME PROGRAMMING -THE "WHY", "WHAT" AND "HOW" WITH GRAPHICS OBJECTS 40 J OURNAL OF OBJECT TECHNOLOGY V OL. 4, NO. 9within a context and culture of a society, i.e. it is situated.The typical student today (2000 -present) is very well versed in playing games on the computer.They acquire high levels of skills in playing these games and in trying to beat the computer.In addition, many argue that (Coleman et al. 2005) "videogames are the initial draw to technology for a number of students in the first place", (Pleva 2004) they provide a "stepping stone for kids into the world of technology.Students who play computer games tend to be more comfortable with the technology and more adept at using it.".Ideas such as these expressed by educationalists show that games are here to stay and are being used as educational tools, and are in many cases successful at delivering educational content in a way that students internalize those concepts being presented.Seay and Scott cite a reference to an article in the American Scientist which shows that the IQ of present day students is increasing and one of the theories for the increase in IQ "is that our increased exposure to visually rich mass media---television, computers, video games --has enabled us to perform better on spatial-visual tests.The theory states that the ability to interpret different forms of information from different media and make some kind of sense of it is what these IQ tests actually test for."The game environment is almost like a comfort zone for the student by which he is not intimidated.It is in fact his preferred choice of context to work in.It is therefore an area that can be used advantageously by educators to motivate students to be focused in and complete their assignments.In fact Feldgen and Clúa show that most students in the year 2003, chose the context of the game environment for their projects compared to the context of engineering, calculus or business and were also successful in completing their projects.This shows that the gaming environment has a heavy influence on the students mind and therefore also acts as a good motivator.Not surprisingly, many universities (GameDev.Net05) such as