“Computer game design”: How to motivate engineering students Jörg R.J. Schirra

4th UICEE Annual Conference on Engineering Education
Bangkok, Thailand, 7-10 February 2001
©2001 UICEE
“Computer game design”: How to motivate engineering students
to integrate technology with reflection
Jörg R.J. Schirra
Otto-von-Guericke University
Magdeburg, Germany
ABSTRACT: The core intention of computational visualistics – a 5-year engineering diploma programme introduced at the university of Magdeburg, Germany in 1996 – is to integrate technical know-how of all kinds of generating and processing of digital images with the reflection on pictures and on the contexts of use of technical devices as performed in the humanities. Although these
interdisciplinary intentions are widely agreed upon, students often feel less motivated to actually materialize this integration as they
mostly find one set of lectures dealing more or less exclusively with technical aspects, and another set dealing predominantly with
the perspectives from, e.g., psychology or educational science. While the advantage of learning “across the boundaries” of Snow's
Two Cultures is quite accepted, the motivation for doing so often wanes in the face of the effort. In search of a theme for a lecture
allowing us to deal with technical and reflective aspects of something relevant for visualistics that would simultaneously gain a high
level of motivation from the students, ‘computer game design’ fell into our view, and proved, on careful examination, to be ideal for
that purpose. This paper describes, as a case study, the background, structure, and effect of the resulting lecture.
THE (NAÏVE) IMAGE OF COMPUTER SCIENTISTS AND
A PROBLEM OF MOTIVATION
supposed to do serve that purpose, too as seen in the more general framework of the humanities.
Therefore, one can try to extend the amount of practical, problem-based projects where students have to practice team work,
and of seminars where they have to give talks and prepare papers. One can also include into the curriculum lectures of the
humanities with relevant themes. Our conception of computational visualistics [2] follows that path: Computational visualists are a subspecies of computer scientists, taught in particular
to deal with all aspects of digital image generation and processing. The two thirds of their curriculum dedicated to technology, i.e., providing the methods (computer science, mathematics, formal logic), are accompanied by about 20% of courses
dealing with reflections on the contexts of image use and on
other non-technical aspects influencing their work as engineers
– courses in fact offered by the faculties of psychology, philosophy, education science, political science, and design. In the
remaining time (ca. 10%), the students deal with an example
application domain where they learn about the particular difficulties when working for clients with completely different
backgrounds, e.g., from medicine or material science. So far,
we might assume that the students in computational visualistics
are lucky as they have certainly got many opportunities for
developing into good communicators with a lot of practice and
a solid theoretical background as well.
No doubt, communicative and social competence is the keystone for the success of every engineer; the best technical
knowledge is not enough to make a good engineer without the
abilities to consider the non-technical preconditions and implications of a technical problem at hand, and to communicate
the quality of a proposed solution to those affected by the
consequences. Without these abilities, in the best case scenario,
what would be achieved would be a narrow-minded genius in
the proverbial ebony tower, and somebody else helping out
with the translations for the outside world. More probable,
however, might be somebody dealing with the engineering
tasks at hand in a technocratic way, ie solving the problems by
considering their technical dimensions alone, and not caring
for anything else.
Unfortunately, the public image of engineers, which often
seems to be shared by engineering students, tends more to the
latter caricature as, for example, Ahearn has observed [1]. Engineers, amongst them in particular computer scientists, are
imagined to be specialists for their respective domains but
more or less handicapped in all verbal respects (exceptions
prove the rule): “Just look at all those incomprehensible manuals they produce.” Well, this is not to say that engineers are
like that. Nevertheless, the traditional curricula offer little options to enhance the communicative and social skills of engineering students and they are seldom encouraged to extend
their verbal competence. In order to help those who are not
good communicators by nature already, courses are needed that
concentrate on communication in practice (and not only
amongst colleagues). Reflections about what engineers are
However, students often feel less motivated to actually materialize the integration, although the interdisciplinary intentions
are widely agreed upon. The caricature of a computer scientist
as mentioned above is often used by the students in order to
deflect any claims on them of being supposed to deal with such
‘soft’ fields of competence in opposition to the simple, strict,
and clear approaches they are used to in mathematics, logic,
and the technical domains. “I want to be an engineer, so I don’t
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need to know about this fuzzy stuff” is an argument we have
often heard in the past five years (mostly from students past
their second year, as a matter of fact). We assume that the students do not really believe in that naïve image of their profession, but use the popular caricature as a pretext. Though by
avoiding the necessary effort, that pretext may in the end become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
students in their final phase of study should attend such a
course, i.e. with sufficient general background in computer
science for working his or her way into any special field, this
objection does not hurt. Most students have already attended
lessons in at least some of those fields. A relatively shallow
introduction into some other specific sub-domains of computer
science in such an integrating context even helps these students
to understand what they still need to know, and how to get it
without a teacher preaching at his/her desk.
Usually, the students do not even find ‘role models’ in their
teachers, i.e., somebody who really (and visibly) integrates
knowledge and skills of technology and reflection in one lecture. After all, the students usually have to attend one set of
lectures dealing more or less exclusively with technical aspects, and another set dealing predominantly with the perspectives from the humanities: no wonder, they develop a problem
of motivation for the integration we expect them to do, and
which, undoubtedly, is quite demanding.
Furthermore, why are we not to view the particular combination needed for computer game design as a (new) special field
in its own rights? After all, the computer games industry itself
has been one of the fastest growing branches in IT – it is a little
known fact that for a couple of years already its turnover has
surpassed that of Hollywood’s film industry (including all the
merchandising involved there) [3]. Even more interesting for
us in engineering education: the game industry has to offer a
great number of jobs. However, there is no special path of education yet. Studying computer science as given provides the
students certainly a good background but it does not really
prepare them for the particular needs and contexts of that industry. There are only very few programmes in computer game
design at universities so far, all of them only recently installed.1
In search of a theme for a lecture allowing us to deal with
technical and reflective aspects of something relevant for visualistics that would simultaneously gain a high level of motivation from the students, computer game design fell into our
view, and proved on careful examination to be ideal for that
purpose. In the following, we first look at three aspects of
computer games as a theme in engineering education: teaching
computer games technology, studying computer games from
the humanities’ points of view, and estimating the students’
motivations for taking such a course. The “anatomy” of a lecture on computer game design that was composed by the author and a colleague is described, followed by considerations
on the experiences with its first run. Concluding, some remarks
are presented concerning the national media echo this lecture
has received, and some more general thoughts about the use of
this case study for others.
Computer games as a medium of reflection for engineers
Important considerations can also be addressed about the social
effects of these products of computer science: starting from the
psychological and anthropological backgrounds of playing in
general and playing computer games in particular, through
gender-specific aspects of computer-gaming and the philosophical foundation of dramatic immersion in a game, up to the
discussion about violence and its representation or enactment
on the video screen, and legal questions of indexing and copyright, or even the organizational and economic demands of
commercial software projects. Obviously, some of these
themes form an important background for any adequate solution of the technical problems mentioned above: How can we
develop good software for an ‘intelligent’ NPC that allows the
players to interact as unrestrictedly as possible without increasing the danger of losing any arc of suspense in the game, if one
does not know about the theory of drama, the backgrounds of
literary immersion, and the motives for playing at all? How is
one to build a successful action game if one has never thought
about the relation between the concepts “power”, “control”,
“violence”, and “representation”?
COMPUTER GAMES AS A LECTURING THEME
Computer games: their technology and industry
Computer games in fact form a quite interesting and fast developing field of information technology. To an ever increasing degree, the domain of computer game design provides
questions stimulating for the engineering perspective. Beside
the most popular search for faster and more realistic 3Dgraphics with buckets of additional special visual effects, those
questions span from considerations on the use of methods for
non-photorealistic rendering on the particular conditions of
online games to the development of intelligent and adaptive
software for controlling non-player-characters (NPC) so that
the divergent demands of high interactivity and a game-dramaturgically adequate arc of suspense are satisfied. Techniques in
fast and safe computer networks are also part of the present
research in computer science connected to computer games as
are algorithmic solutions to the problem of copyright and game
‘piracy’.
Some others of the themes mentioned above are necessary if
one wants to understand – and perhaps overcome – some problems in the present use of computer games. For example: Why
do most boys in western society play with computers, whereas
most girls do not? What kind of games would be suitable for
girls, and would such games help to lead women to be more
interested in computers and technology, perhaps even take up
an engineering programme later at university, thus supporting -
Most of these themes can be easily integrated into problembased project work on computer game design integrating several classical fields of computer science. One might have the
objection that such a broad approach to themes each of which
can easily fill a single lecture by itself does only ‘scratch the
surfaces’, and, by avoiding greater depth, proves almost useless for the students in the end. However, assuming that only
1
In the academic range, there seem to be only two competitors right
now: the School of Computing and Mathematics of the University of
Teesside, UK, offers a three-year B. A. programme in computer
games design starting in 2000 [4]. The University of California at
Irvine is also reported to start an interdisciplinary gaming studies
programme in Fall 2000 [5].
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– in a rather subtle and long-termed way – women’s emancipation in the information society of the 21st century?
students’ motivation for the technological aspects really ‘flow
over’ to the domains of reflection, as we hope?
Of course, the application of the discussions about psychological, political, sociological, and other aspects of this particular
kind of software is not necessarily restricted to computer
games. Arguments can be adapted to other fields of computer
science: we might wish, for example, to find the high quality of
user interfaces usual for computer games with the software we
are forced to use every day at work. That quality is certainly a
consequence of a careful consideration of the users’ psychological preconditions, as well as of the social and economical
context of the software’s use: If a software system we have
bought in order to have a good and relaxing time with is complicated to get started, causes a lot of system breakdowns, and
forces us to do what we want to do in a non-intuitive manner, it
won’t be used often, and we certainly shan’t buy anything of
that brand again. Unfortunately, we are not that free with the
software at work.
ANATOMY OF A LECTURE ON COMPUTER GAMES
Basic idea and schematic schedule
The course the author has developed with a colleague (M. Masuch) is open to all students of the department of computer
science after their second year. The title ‘Computer games:
technology and reflection’ indicates that the two aspects are
not to be dealt with separately. Nevertheless, it is not prudent
to mix them up completely: the methodologies underlying
technology and the humanities are quite different; jumping
back and forth between them too fast would make it unnecessarily difficult for the students to gain a clear understanding of
the fields per se and of their interrelations. With our solution –
two meetings (two hours each) per week, one of them to deal
with a theme from the engineering perspective, the other for
some reflective aspects – the methodological differences remain distinct, and the relations between the fields can be elaborated, as well. The list of the 14 themes originally used is given
Students in computational visualistics can be supposed to be
particularly well prepared for the themes mentioned above, as
they have already passed several lectures in general visualistics, i.e., theories related to either pictures or technology in the
humanities.
Table 1: The fourteen themes of the first lecture
Computer games and the students’ motivation
Reflection
history of computer games
reflections on immersion
psychological aspects
power – violence – addiction
gender-specific aspects
game dramaturgy
esthetical considerations
Today, we can assume that most of the potential clients of a
lecture on computer game design have had prior experiences
with computer games in their hours of leisure. There is even a
chance they have already developed a (naïve) understanding of
quality – they distinguish between those computer games that
are well designed, and others that are not – and that they are
aware of the influence playing computer games has on their
lives. With such a strong relation to something done for relaxation, the motivations to deal with its technology from the professional perspective must also be quite high. Nevertheless, it
is to be expected that the common hesitation to deal “at work”
with a subject generally believed to be rather trivial and irrelevant is shared by prospective students – and for that matter by
the faculty colleagues, as well. Are computer games indeed
suitable for curriculum? One question we were astoundingly
often asked after announcing our plan for such a lecture was
like: “Oh well, so I can pass by winning three levels of SOLDIER OF FORTUNES, can’t I?” – revealing quite obviously
the ambiguous feeling of the questioner.
Technology
computer graphics (basics)
computer graphics (high end)
character animation
artificial intelligence
user interface design
multi-user interaction
sound and music
in Table 1.
Two students have to handle one theme, i.e., cover a relatively
huge collection of appropriate texts provided by us; they have
to decide what complementary aspect of the texts each of them
would present in a half-hour talk (each followed by 15 min. of
discussion). Students have been encouraged to use multimedia
presentation programs in order to be able to integrate bits of
games they think exemplary (intro films, cut scenes, demo
games, etc.), but advised not to exceed 10% of their time for
such demonstrations. After the presentation, the talk has to be
elaborated into a paper (ca. 10 pages), also integrating crucial
points from the discussion. Finally, the students have to propose ideas for a game; they then have to form groups of about
four (based on the similarity of their proposals), decide about
what idea or combination of ideas is to be considered further,
and finally present one level or significant part of that game
just before the start of the next term.
We used a questionnaire at the beginning of the lecture, asking
for the expectations the students have of the lecture (beside
earlier experiences and preferences with computer games, and
which type of computer game they would like to program
themselves). The answers are almost equally partitioned among
(1) to understand how games work technically, (2) to get an
overview about new trends in computer game technology, (3)
to learn how to design and program one’s own game(s), and
(4) to understand how games affect the players. The main focus is on the technical dimension (1-3), but there is a certain
consciousness of the necessity of psychological, sociological
and other knowledge about playing as elaborated in the humanities (4).
At the beginning of the lecture, several introductory talks were
given: about theoretical approaches to games in general, about
computer game design and its industry in general, and about
preparing scientific talks and papers. The last four weeks of the
term were used to prepare the practical part to be done mostly
during the two months long ‘vacation’ (as usual for German
universities). A session for the grouping was preceded by a
brainstorming session, and followed by an introduction into the
tools to be used. Additionally, three invited talks were given
Thus, this case study basically has to answer two questions:
First, is it possible to devise a lecture on computer games that
is taken serious enough by the students? And second, does the
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during that time by representatives of the German computer
game industry.2
focus in the second term is on technology alone, which we
intended to explain more extensively. The classical form was
preferred as it allowed us to go on with a higher “speed” than
students’ presentations would have done. Again, as part of the
practical training, a computer game was developed – this time
all the students formed one group, the result is a non-violent
3D shooter with a web-based multi-player option.3
Compared to other lectures in computer science, the performance expected was at the upper limit since students have usually to deal with only a practical task or a talk and paper.
Concluding, we interpret our experiences as an answer to the
two questions posed earlier: In general, all students expressed
at the end of the term that they not only enjoyed the lecture but
also think to have learned a lot in all respects discussed before,
even though they had to devote a lot of time and energy. Thus,
a lecture can be conceived as a serious treatment of important
aspects of computer games.
The first experience – and its consequences
This lecture was first offered in the winter semester 1999/2000.
First, the interest was enormous, though after announcing the
criteria for passing the course, only 18 students decided to go
on. Interestingly, only two of them were women (compared to
ca. 30% in computational visualistics).
Students from computational visualistics mentioned that they
have not had any difficulties with the literature they had to
study for the ‘reflection’ themes, while participants from the
computer science programme thought this part quite demanding – no wonder, as they had not been offered regular courses
in the humanities in advance. All but one stated they think the
reflective themes have been essential and should definitely not
be dropped or reduced in a repetition of the lecture. The one
student not quite convinced – a computer scientist – mentioned
as an explanation his unease with situations typical for discussions in the humanities: that two opinions seem to be right in
some respect without having the means for ‘calculating’ a
proper, unique solution. Thus (and as an answer to the second
question), for most of the students, their initial interest in the
technology has indeed been extended to the humanities’ perspective.
In general, we are quite satisfied with the outcome of the lecture. Throughout the course, the quality of the presentations
was indeed high to superior. The discussions have been unusually lively, in particular when ‘reflective’ themes had been presented. The connections between the technology parts and the
reflection parts were a constant focus in the discussions. The
students have taken our bait, so to speak, and indeed transferred their primary interest in technology to the reflective aspects related.
The practical task, i.e., the development of a significant part of
an own computer game, came out relatively satisfying in the
end, as well. However, we noticed that the students were so
motivated that they even wanted to do too much in the limited
time. One group using the level editor of a commercial 3Dgame planned to invent a complete additional level for that
game on the basis of U. Eco’s “The Name of The Rose” [6]; a
level that would finally be larger than any of the commercial
levels delivered so far. Another group intending to make a 2Dadventure on the basis of hand-drawn sketches had to learn
“the hard way” of how time-consuming a task like that is.
Nevertheless, the learning effect of this practical task as seen
by the students themselves has been tremendous. It is not only
the techniques they had to apply, but also the experience in
teamwork and their own underestimation of the effort. All
groups made use of some quality criteria for their design
decisions, criteria which were essentially based on aspects
discussed in the reflection sessions.
As our conception of this cycle of lectures proved to be quite
workable, we were asked for repetitions: In October 2000, the
second cycle has begun. There are only few changes from the
old conception, which became necessary since the original first
lecture was not designed to have a continuation in the following term. Mainly, we decided to assign the practical task of
“Computer games I: Technology and Reflection” – the teamwork to design an own computer game – completely to “Computer games II: Algorithms and tools” in the second semester,
leaving only a few smaller and more introductory programming tasks to the first term.
The papers are in general acceptable or good, though mostly
not as good as the corresponding talks had promised. The
original plan to use them as a basis for a lecture book had to be
postponed. Partially, the excessive use of time students had put
into the practical task was responsible for the somehow diminished quality of the written presentations, which nevertheless
can still be rated as a good training.
NATIONAL REACTIONS
To our great surprise, German media became aware of our lecture in an unexpected scale after the first term of the lecture
cycle was finished: a flood of demands for interviews had to be
served and at least nine reports in newspapers, magazines, and
radio were published. This is interesting especially in two respects: (1) Why did that happen with this particular lecture?
and (2), Do those reports have a positive influence on the public image of computer scientists?
At the end of the first semester, we, the lecturers, and the students agreed that a continuation would be highly desirable: In
particular, the students wanted to learn about some technical
aspects in greater detail. We therefore planned “Computer
Games II: Tools and Algorithms”. For the question focussed
here the continuation is less relevant. It was more classically
designed as a weekly two hour lecture with additional two
hours of practical training and programming homework. The
Presumably, the answer to the first question is linked to the
very observation we used when beginning to prepare this lecture: computer games are a phenomenon in our society with a
large and still growing number of people involved, and with an
increasing economical potential, as well. Simultaneously, it is
still viewed by many as a somehow seedy theme; some report-
2
Currently, co-operation with the following companies is established:
ASCARON (Gütersloh), Electronic Arts (Canada), e|media (Magdeburg), Radical Entertainment (Canada), visions-2-order (Munich),
Virtual Laser Games (Munich), and the private institute for further
education in new media Level 4 (Berlin).
3
In the game “Penguin Battle”, players and NPC’s control (respectively are) penguins involved in a snowball battle.
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ers may have counted on the sensational effect of combining
something as dubious as that with the assumed high-spirited
seriousness of German academic education, as a headline like
“Educational Aim: Doom, Pong, Quake” [7] at least appears to
indicate. Articles in magazines for computer aficionados employed a more serious tone by comparing the approach of
Magdeburg as described here with plans of an American university to install a degree programme in computer game design
in the general framework of the growing needs of the game
industry [8]. But even here, the particular background we had,
namely to be able to combine technology with reflection is
barely mentioned at all. This already gives some hints of how
the second question might be answered: in general, no such
positive effect is to be expected, since the particular disadvantage of the public image of computer scientists (like for all
engineers) mentioned at the beginning is not addressed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Maic Masuch who has significantly contributed to the conception of the lecture, and without whom its
realization would not have been successful. Bert Vehmeier and
Christian Mantei have to be thanked for their tutoring work.
Further thanks go to all of our colleagues who have supported
us with their advice and practical help, and, last but not least,
to the students who expend a lot of energy for a great lecturing
experience.
Online information about the lecture described here is to be found in:
www.computervisualistik.de/~masuch/computerspiele/
At least, the media echo on our lecture on computer game design has also lead to further contacts with the game developing
industry, valuable not only with respect to research projects or
industrial internships our students have to perform.
REFERENCES
1. Ahearn, Alison L., Words fail us: the pragmatic need for
rhetoric in engineering communication. In: Global J. of
Engng. Educ. 4(1):57-63, 2000.
CONCLUSION
2. Schirra, Jörg R.J., A new theme for educating new engineers: computational visualistics. In: Global J. of Engng.
Educ. 4(1):73-82, 2000.
We set out to find a lecture that would show the students how
their primary interest in technology is indeed dependent on and
deepened by reflections on technology in the humanities. This
lecture ought to cover a general condition: its central technological theme must catch enough of the students’ interest that
their motivation to deal with questions of reflection would also
be comparably high. For computer science, computer game
design is such a theme. A case study of a corresponding lecture
has been presented.
3. Oliver, Charles, The last picture show. In: Reason online,
April 1994, Los Angeles: <http://www.reason.com/9404/
col.oliver.html> (as of October 2000).
4. Mack, Jennifer, How about a B.A. in Quake? Educators to
offer advanced degree in games. In: ZDNet, March 2, 2000,
to be found in: <http://www.zdnet. com/zdnn/stories/news/
0,4586,2455068,00.html> (as of October 2000).
Is there a generalization we can draw that would be applicable
to other domains in engineering education? The answer to that
question is not at all easy and can only be given as a very general, structural suggestion for other teachers to look in their
own domain. Is there a (new) theme in your domain of engineering that is very popular and mostly related to leisure? Usually, such a theme might not only gain a high amount of apriori motivation. Its popularity also opens the field for the
humanities: the use of that technology in everyday life makes it
a wide-spread or growing social phenomenon, i.e., a theme that
must draw the attention of psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists etc. Thus, one may find already a respectable amount
of scientific papers in the humanities sufficient for building a
lecture comparable to the one presented here.
5. Description of the B. A. programme computer game design
at the Univ. of Teesside, UK: <http:// wheelie.tees.ac.uk/
courses/degree/compgames.html> (as of October 2000).
6. Eco, Umberto, The Name of the Rose, Hartcourt 1983.
7. Schmundt, Hilmar, Lernziel: Doom, Pong, Quake – Die
Uni Magdeburg verteilt Scheine fürs Computerspielen:
Game-Design bekommt die Hochschulreife. Der Spiegel /
UniSpiegel, 5/2000, 80–82.
8. Dechtjarew, Bianca, Studierte Spieleschöpfer – Das universitäre Ausbildungsprogramm für Gamedesign in den USA.
c’t, 10/2000, 104–105.
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