5.3. SECTION ROUNDUPExploration of project hand-in and section roundup

QUESTION CLINIC: FAQIn lecture exploration of answers to frequently asked student questions

EXPLORATORY MILESTONEExploration of the Week 6 Exploratory Milestone

Week 6 Exploratory Milestone (Question 1)

Remember this is not a binding contract – it is intended to help you plan and manage your development.

•Question 1: If your game has evolved and changed from that reported in the Week 2 proposal, then please provide details here of the change, including any update to the core, desirable and optional functionality.

To do:Complete questions

Week 6 Exploratory Milestone (Question 2)

Initial time estimates tend to be optimistic and rarely realised. Experience (sometimes bitter) enables better estimates!

•Question 2: Identify the items of core, desirable or optional functionality that you plan to have developed for the Week 9 Alpha Milestone and provide a rough development timeline

Week 6 Exploratory Milestone (Question 3)

•Question 3: Please identify any questions, areas, problems, topics, etc. that you would like me to provide explicit feedback on within the audio feedback.

Please do identify any specific areas of concern or uncertainty on which you would like to receive feedback.

CSC2007 OSCARSMid-way awards

CSC2007 OscarsThe first lecture on Week 7 will be an awards ceremony (a bit of fun) based on the Week 6 Exploratory Milestone submission.

A number of different prize categories can/may be recognised and rewarded, as follows:

CSC2007 Oscars

Most authentic

rendition of a classic computer

game

Most original/fu

n game design or game play

idea

Game I least want to

present at the Board of Examiners

CSC2007 Oscars

Most comprehensi

ve game design

including development

plan and contingency

planning.

Game with the best title

Game with the most

inappropriate title

CSC2007 Oscars

Submission with the

most impressive exploratory

codeAside: There

actually will be prizes!

DEBUGGING ADVICEOverview of debugging advice

Debugging in gamesDebugging in games is often hard:• Update/draw process

happens very frequently and quickly (~60 times second, 17ms per tick). It can be hard to reason about what is happening.

• A lot of the available debugging tools cannot be easily applied to games (including GPU interaction)

Debugging (The Commandments)Thou shalt have a clear understanding of what should happen• This may be obvious, but sometimes

people start debugging without a clear understanding of what should happen.

Thou shalt reproduce the problem consistently

• It is much easier to debug and test a problem that can be consistently reproduced, although sometimes this is not realistically achieveable.

Thou shalt test your assumptions• Debugging is a process of identifying

your assumptions (this can be hard) and then testing to see if they hold.

Debugging (The Commandments)Thou shalt divide and conquer• In order to manage game complexity, ‘high-

level’ assumptions should be firstly checked to enable the search to be constrained.

Thou shalt think and look• Debugging is a process of identifying an

assumption and then checking the code (log file, debugger, print statements) to test that assumption.

Thou shalt change on thing at a time• When testing changes to a program, only

one factor should be changed at a time to limit interdependency.

Debugging (The Commandments)Thou shalt keep an audit trail• Either using code versioning (or pen &

paper and simple backups) , keep a record of changes made to the program

Thou shalt thoroughly test the correction• The correction should be tested to

ensure the original problem has been fixed with no impact on existing working components.

Thou shalt not let the problem unfixed• Ignoring a problem only increases the

new bug complexity and can introduce later problems or introduce dependency upon the buggy code.

Summary

To do:Bring together explored

material to progress design and develop code

Develop work plan for next week

Work towards completing hand-in

Today we explored:

Information to be submitted for the Week 6 Handin

Useful approach towards game debugging