This page is a course resource for Beth Katz's section of CS 420 which meets Monday (9-10), Wednesday (8-10), and Friday (9-10). Classes are in Roddy 147.
We are using Fundamentals of Software Engineering, 2nd Edition, Ghezzi, Jazayeri, and Mandrioli, Prentice Hall, 2003. ISBN 0-13-305699-6.
Reading the textbook and course handouts gives you additional perspective and details on the topics we're covering in class. If you decide to not read the them, it is possible to pass the course. You may do well in the course. But you aren't taking full advantage of the educational opportunity you're paying for and we're trying to provide. You're hearing only part of the story. The concepts will make more sense and fit together better if you use the textbook and handouts as additional resources. See my learning page for more discussion.
I've decided to put my room, item, and vocabulary data in XML.
The examples are:
roomsJan17
You can check whether your XML is well-formed with the
XML Syntax Checker.
If you've never played such a game, you might look at A Beginner's Guide to Playing Interactive Fiction. Or you might play one of the web-based versions at Interactive Fiction. Note that these can become a huge time sink - be careful.
Also note that you are not building an interpreter for one of the big interactive fiction langauges - see Inform or Interactive Fiction Archive. But you will have an interpreter of data files describing the game. You'll be building an interpreter and a game engine. There will be a lot of objects.
I am referring to many other texts and resources including