Semester(s) Offered: Fall
Credits: 4
Course Call Number: GAMES-UT 323
Prerequisite(s): None
Mobile Game Studio is a class where students learn to make games for modern touchscreen-based ‘smartphones’: either on the Android or iOS operating systems and hardware. The class is focused on practicing game design and development within the particular constraints imposed by the hardware, software and other relevant externalities on these platforms.
Designers of games for mobile phones have four particular problems: first, the touchscreen affords unique opportunities for input design but also poses unique limitations (most obviously, that the user’s finger occludes the screen). Second, the portable, interruptible nature of phone use means that games must be designed to fit around a player’s life, rather than expecting that the player will make time and place for playing games. Third, the audience for cellphones is unusually diverse and non-technical, which means that successful phone games have higher demands in terms of simplicity and conveyance of instructions. Finally, a commercially viable cell phone game must typically be designed from the ground up with a business model in mind, taking into account the rapidly-changing landscape of publishing and monetization on mobile platforms. This class addresses each of these problems through short practical prototyping assignments, in-class lectures and discussion.