Game Design, Game History, and Research in Games

Abstract text that says "games" in yellow on a sky background with grass and a butterfly

Department of Computer Science

Zoom: https://stevens.zoom.us/j/97552006768 (Passcode 976851)

Speaker: Manfred Lau, Assistant Professor, City University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

In this talk, I will start by describing a definition of games, discuss what is a game, and describe some game design principles. I will then discuss a selected history of games, starting with ancient board games. I will describe Game Design courses I have taught at Lancaster University and the City University of Hong Kong, where my students make board games for their course projects. Furthermore, I will continue to describe the history of games with video games such as Pong, Tetris, and Street Fighter. Then, I will describe a 2D Game course I have taught and discuss some topics briefly including: Pixel Art, the Snake game, gravity simulations and colliders in Unity, the Angry Birds game, side-view tiles, and platformer games. In addition, I will show examples of 2D games my students have made. I will also describe a 3D Game course I have taught and discuss some topics, including 3D Modeling (with Blender and ProBuilder), first-person movements, global illumination, and character animations. In addition, I will show examples of 3D games my students have made. Finally, I will discuss interesting research questions in the area of games.

BIOGRAPHY

Portrait of Manfred Lau

Dr. Manfred Lau is an Assistant Professor in the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong. He was previously a Lecturer in the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University in the UK, a visiting faculty with the Yale Graphics Group, and a post-doc researcher with Prof. Takeo Igarashi. Manfred's research is in the areas of computer graphics, games, and human-computer interaction. His work has been published at top-tier venues such as SIGGRAPH and TVCG. He has served in the technical program committees of major conferences such as SIGGRAPH Asia, and MIG (ACM conference on Motion, Interaction, and Games). He was the Program co-Chair of ACM TEI 2019 and Program co-Chair of ACM SAP 2024. Manfred has taught computer graphics, gaming, and artificial intelligence courses in the UK and Hong Kong.