Syllabus

Instructor Information

Prof. Tony Jefferson
tony@mail.rit.edu
Office Location: (GOL)70-2671
Office Hours for 20013

Meeting times and Location

Section 03: Tuesday/Thursday, 8:00AM - 9:50 AM in room (GOL)70-2570

Course Description

The delivery of media-centric applications and games on mobile devices has increased dramatically in recent years. Developing applications for mobile devices involves overcoming many challenges including slower processors, smaller screens, and a fragmented market of multiple operating systems.

In this course, learners will utilize iterative, rapid application development techniques, and a cross platform development environment, to produce and publish a game or media-centric application for one or more mobile operating systems.

Topics explored include performance profiling and optimization, enabling hardware acceleration, designing for the small screen, and creating interactivity via non-standard inputs such as touch screens and accelerometers.

Individual and group projects will be required. The group project will involve taking a mobile game from concept to reality. Small teams of students will plan, develop, test, and prepare the game to publish in the app markets of one or more mobile operating systems.

Prerequisites: Prereq. 4080-330 or Equivalent

Textbook

Griffith, Chris. (2011). Real World Flash Game Development – 2nd Edition. ISBN-13: 978-0240817682

Computer Accounts

You'll need an IGM account in order to login to the lab computers. You almost certainly already have this account, but if you don't (or if you have problems with it), ask me about it.

Software

Adobe Flash CS 5.5 will be our SDK of choice for publishing mobile apps to both iOS and Android.

Hardware

An iPad-2 or Android tablet (your choice) will be provided to each team.

Course Topics

Media Apps

Game Apps

Projects Overview

Mini-project 1 - Web Service Mobile App

Building from the RIT RSS Reader that we will build in class, teams of 2 students will create a visually rich mobile application that displays the contents of a web service.

The exact web service used is up to the students, but music and game related APIs have been popular.


Mini-project 2 - Location Based Game

By utilizing the AS3 Geolocation API, StageWebView, Google Maps, and RIT's MIS (Map Information Service) API students will build a simple Location Based Game

Note: Depending on how long Mini-project 1 takes, this may become a large HW assignment that we do together in class.


Final Project

Over about 4 weeks of time, teams of 2 students will create a substantial mobile application.

The theme is up to the students, but the app could be an enhanced Web Service or Location-based game as we did in the first half of the course, or it could be a more traditional game in just about any genre (shooter, platformer, puzzle etc...)

Building on prior work you have done is allowed subject to prior approval by the Prof.


Grading

Note: Grade A = superior work, not just satisfactory.
90+=A, 80+=B, 70+=C, 65+=D, 64.999-=F

Note: Attendance grade: 1 absence 4/5 points, 2 absences 2.5/5 points, 3 absences 0/5 points. Each additional absence is 2.5% off of final average. Late is 1/2 absence (2 minute grace period). Facebooking or similar off-task activity during lectures or demos will count as a absence for the day.

Note: There are no make-ups and no extra credit.

Note: Overdue projects will lose 10% for every 24 hour period that they are late.

Note: The MAXIMUM grade awarded on any late project is an 85%

Academic Honesty

ANY instance of academic dishonesty (cheating, collusion, or duplicate submission) will result in a failing grade in the course and will be reported to the chair of the student's home department. This policy includes all assignments, including seemingly trivial ones like homework. There will be no second chances given.

IGM Academic Integrity Policy (pdf)
RIT Academic Honesty Policy

Important RIT Deadlines

All of the information on this page is subject to change.

Go to Courses Home