Build a Roleplaying Game

Learning Objectives

When learning computer science, creating larger projects can be motivational and help students learn the big picture about the field. No one project is necessarily better or worse than another. While learning about games is not magic, they are naturally complicated enough to be interesting, while also giving students a payoff in the sense that they can play what they have created while being creative. Notably, in this session, we will be learning about Quorum Studio's Scene Editor in order to build our own role playing game.

You will:

1. Learn about the Scene Editor
2. Learn about the Palette and the Grid
3. Learn how to create a game

What is a roleplaying game?

Role Playing games come in many shapes and sizes. Throughout the next few sessions, we are going to focus on putting together a game with the following properties:

1. Map: role playing games often have a background map that can be traversed by monsters and a player character
2. Things: games often have decorations, like potions or flags, characters like a boy or a girl, and other items that a character might want to interact with
3. Quests: role Playing games often have things to do, like a royal quest to destroy Evil Lord Bunnykins and his band of carrot-loving cultists.
4. Sounds and Effects: Often we might have background music, sounds, and other effects to indicate what is happening in our game.
5. Movement and triggers: typically a player can control the action, but the game also might take action at various points during a game

Over the next few days, we will be making a game with these ideas in mind. At each step, we will walk through what kind of operations Quorum Studio can do for us and where we have to step in, get our hands dirty, and write the code.

Introduction to the Scene Editor (10 minutes)

In the first ten minutes, we will first go over the primary components of the scene editor in Quorum Studio, including the Palette, the Scene Tab, and the Grid. More information on these components can be found in the scene editor introductory tutorial.

Pick a Theme (10 minutes)

Once we know the basics of using the scene editor, we need to pick a theme for our game. Individuals that want to create a game on their own are free to do so, but creating computer games is sometimes more fun with a friend. For this reason, while it is not required, we encourage participants to consider choosing one or more partners and creating a game together. We recommend, but also do not require, using Slack for communication and Github to share code with each other.

Once you know if you have a partner, it is time to pick a theme! Anything you find fun will do, but Quorum Studio comes with default art and inventing a story that does not require new art assets is easier. For those that want to develop their own art assets, and make that art accessible, it is possible to do that in Quorum Studio, although it is not part of our lessons for the week. More information on that can be found in the tutorial on changing the palette.

Activity (30 minutes)

Now that we have a theme, we are going to use the Plane to add and remove items from our map, focusing on just the background of our level. We will first go over using the grid, including how it is used accessibly, and then provide everyone time to create a map of their own design. More information on adding and removing items from a scene can be found in the tutorial on adding and removing items.

Wrap-up (10 minutes)

For the final few minutes, we are going to go into breakout rooms and share our map with our partner. The goal is to present a brief idea on your theme, show the map where it stands, and to provide encouragement and ideas to each other as a group. Note that partners that want to work together on the same scene can share their scene files and source code with each other however they see fit. We again recommend using github.com, but even emailing back and forth, using Slack, or any other mechanism that works for you and your partner, will get the job done for this training. Those that would like extra help on using github are welcome to ask about it during office hours.

Next Tutorial

In the next tutorial, we will discuss Place Characters, which describes placing characters and designing a quest..