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
- Mobile and Tablet App Best Practices
- Mobile and Tablet UI conventions - lists, buttons, segmented controllers, pickers, drawers, switches, pop-up windows.
- Mobile and Tablet Navigation - tab bars, flip views, drill-down navigation
- Handling Touch and Gesture Input
- Sensors: Acceleromter and Geolocation
- Building "Hybrid" Apps that use both native and browser APIs - Google maps and StageWebView
- Utilizing Web Services, RSS, and RIT's MIS (Map Information Service) API.
- Working with XML and JSON data
Game Apps
- Cross-platform, rapid application development techniques and prototyping.
- Utilizing code libraries for UI animation, sound, and physics.
- Handling touch and accelerometer input.
- Maintaining game performance – profiling frame rate, preventing memory leaks, and enabling GPU caching.
- Publishing an app to one or more mobile app marketplaces
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
- HW and ICE - 15%
- Attendance and Participation - 5%
- Projects - 50%
- Exams - 30%
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
- Last day of add/drop is the end of week 1.
- Last day to withdraw with a grade of W is the end of week 8.
- You have one quarter to challenge your grade. After that, grades cannot be challenged (IGM department policy).
All of the information on this page is subject to change.