Learners will investigate various game engines, their purpose and components to understand how they can be used to produce games. They will develop skills using a 2D or 3D games engine to plan and develop games. This unit also allows learners to obtain feedback on their work for review and further development.
Understand the purpose and components of games engines.
AC 1.1:
Types of game engine: 2D engines, 3D engines, mobile engines, game mods.
Functions: graphic rendering, collision detection, artificial intelligence (AI), sound, scripting, animation, physics.
Components: five main components, the main game program which contains the game logic, a rendering engine used to generate 3D animated graphics, an audio engine consisting of algorithms which are related to sounds, a physics engine to implement 'physical' laws, and artificial intelligence, a module designed to be used by software engineers with a specialist designation.
AC 1.2:
Unreal Engine one the most popular and widely used game engines, others include: Unity, GameMaker, Godot, AppGameKit, CryEngine, Amazon Lumberyard, RPG Maker.
Explain the purpose and components of game engines.
Compare different game engines.
Be able to use a games engine to plan the development of a 2D or 3D game.
Game map: popular technique in game development, consisting of building the game world or level map out of small, regular-shaped images called tiles, popular games that use this technique are Super Mario, Pacman, Sim City 2000.
Level design: e.g. genre, interpreting creative brief, storyboarding, asset management, level design maps.
Create an overhead view for a 2D or 3D game level.
Identify where assets will be placed.
Identify locations for spawn points.
Be able to create a 2D or 3D game map.
Assets: graphical (sprites, backgrounds, textures), behavioural (events, objects, scripts), sound e.g. effects, music, ambience, dialogue, file types e.g. bmp, gif, tiff, jpg, wav, midi, aiff, au, smp, mp3, ra, vox.
Production: assets, actions, animation, game world, testing (alpha and beta, user testing).
Use a level editor to create a 2D or 3D game map.
Apply and position assets and spawn points on game map.
Be able to apply testing techniques to a 2D or 3D game map.
Test, make any necessary changes, optimise settings, publishing (app for mobile devices or exe for PC), refinements based on feedback.
Carry out alpha testing, making corrections as necessary.
Carry out beta testing obtaining feedback from others.
Refine game map, making suggestions for further improvements.