Course Outline
SGD213 Professional Games Programming
Course Coordinator:Arden Sedmak (asedmak@usc.edu.au) School:School of Business and Creative Industries
2026Trimester 1
UniSC Sunshine Coast |
Blended learning | Most of your course is on campus but you may be able to do some components of this course online. |
Online |
Online | You can do this course without coming onto campus, unless your program has specified a mandatory onsite requirement. |
Please go to unisc.edu.au for up to date information on the
teaching sessions and campuses where this course is usually offered.
What is this course about?
Description
This course extends the fundamental concepts of games programming knowledge and skills acquired in SGD102. This course focusses explicitly on concepts of object-oriented programming within a professional game development context. The course develops a comprehensive understanding of games programming design principles and how to apply them in professional game development systems. You will engage with and use technical terminology, theoretical concepts, and academic approaches to game programming, acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to design and develop games programming solutions.
How will this course be delivered?
| Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
| Blended learning | |||
| Learning materials – Interactive online learning activities. | 1hr | Week 1 | 12 times |
| Tutorial/Workshop 1 – Scheduled face to face workshops. | 2hrs | Week 1 | 12 times |
| Online | |||
| Learning materials – Interactive online learning activities. | 1hr | Week 1 | 12 times |
| Tutorial/Workshop 1 – Scheduled online workshops (Recorded). | 2hrs | Week 1 | 12 times |
Course Topics
Programming in game development teams
Object-oriented programming concepts
The four principles of object-oriented programming (encapsulation, abstraction, inheritance, and polymorphism)
Object-oriented programming in a realtime game engine
Publishing games for multiple platforms
What level is this course?
200 Level (Developing)
What is the unit value of this course?
12 units
How does this course contribute to my learning?
| Course Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this course, you should be able to... | Graduate Qualities Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | |
| 1 | Analyse, evaluate, and develop programs in the C# language. |
Creative and critical thinker Empowered |
| 2 | Work in a structured and modular manner, consistent with the needs of a team development environment. | Engaged |
| 3 | Communicate programming concepts with simplicity and precision when collaborating with non-programmers, both verbally and in the form of a technical specification. |
Empowered Engaged |
| 4 | Create code to specification in developing and applying games programming solutions. |
Creative and critical thinker Empowered |
Am I eligible to enrol in this course?
Refer to the UniSC Glossary of terms for definitions of “pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites”.
Pre-requisites
SGD102 or ICT112 or SGD203
Co-requisites
Not applicable
Anti-requisites
Not applicable
Specific assumed prior knowledge and skills (where applicable)
Not applicable
Microcredential Information
Not applicable
How am I going to be assessed?
Grading Scale
Standard Grading (GRD)
| High Distinction (HD), Distinction (DN), Credit (CR), Pass (PS), Fail (FL). |
Details of early feedback on progress
The course material is structured in a way that students are progressively working towards their assessment pieces. These progressive works are based on weekly learning material which is delivered in a way that is initially demonstrated, then applied. During application, the teacher will provide support and feedback for the student's growth in each subject matter.
Assessment tasks
| Delivery mode | Task No. | Assessment Product | Individual or Group | Weighting % | What is the duration / length? | When should I submit? | Where should I submit it? |
| All | 1 | Artefact - Technical and Scientific | Individual | 30% | N/A |
Refer to Format | Online Submission |
| All | 2 | Artefact - Creative, and Written Piece | Group | 30% | 1500 words & architecture diagrams |
Week 7 | Online Submission |
| All | 3 | Artefact - Technical and Scientific, and Written Piece | Individual | 40% | 500 words & code artefacts |
Week 12 | Online Submission |
| All - Assessment Task 1:Code clean-up | ||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | When working in a structured team environment, you will inevitably work on programs written by other programmers, and they will work on yours. Poorly written code results in inefficiency and confusion. In this task, you will evaluate and debug flawed code, follow a specified style, and provide useful comments where necessary. |
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| Product: | Artefact - Technical and Scientific | |||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | ||||||||||||||||
| Format: | Each piece of debugged code must be submitted separately to Canvas, by the end of weeks 3, 5, and 7. Each sub-task is weighted evenly, and worth 10% of the total weighting for the course. This is an individual task. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | ||||||||||||||||
| All - Assessment Task 2:Developing a tech spec | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | Miscommunication within a team, especially between programmers and non-programmers, often leads to inefficiency, confusion, and programs which do not perform as expected. In this task, you will develop a client specification document, which simply and precisely translates "client-speak" into "programmer-speak". You must not only distil the client's expectations, you must also describe the technical requirements of the project, adding structure to the process (architecture) and reducing the likelihood of miscommunication. |
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| Product: | Artefact - Creative, and Written Piece | ||||||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | The specification document should be as descriptive as necessary, but as concise as possible, 3-4 pages, including relevant architecture diagrams (in any consistent format of your choice, such as UML). Examples will be provided in class. This is a group assessed task. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | |||||||||||||||||||
| All - Assessment Task 3:Implementing a tech spec | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | Developing a client requirements specification clarifies the expectations of the client as well as the technical requirements of the project. In this task, now implement a portion of C# code accordingly, within the Unity 3D Game Engine. |
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| Product: | Artefact - Technical and Scientific, and Written Piece | ||||||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | This is a group task with individual assessment. You will work with the rest of your group from Assessment Task 2 to ensure that your sections of code interact with the rest of the project as expected. Submit the project as a group, and each individual will also be required to submit their own self-assessment. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | |||||||||||||||||||
Directed study hours
A 12-unit course will have total of 150 learning hours which will include directed study hours (including online if required), self-directed learning and completion of assessable tasks. Student workload is calculated at 12.5 learning hours per one unit.
What resources do I need to undertake this course?
Please note: Course information, including specific information of recommended readings, learning activities, resources, weekly readings, etc. are available on the course Canvas site– Please log in as soon as possible.
Prescribed text(s) or course reader
Specific requirements
This course requires some free professional games development software which is provided at UniSC campuses for student use. If you elect to do this course online, you will need to install this software on your own computer or attend a campus at which it is available. The software requires a large amount of disk space and a higher-end computer.
How are risks managed in this course?
What administrative information is relevant to this course?
Assessment: Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is the ethical standard of university participation. It ensures that students graduate as a result of proving they are competent in their discipline. This is integral in maintaining the value of academic qualifications. Each industry has expectations and standards of the skills and knowledge within that discipline and these are reflected in assessment.
Academic integrity means that you do not engage in any activity that is considered to be academic fraud; including plagiarism, collusion or outsourcing any part of any assessment item to any other person. You are expected to be honest and ethical by completing all work yourself and indicating in your work which ideas and information were developed by you and which were taken from others. You cannot provide your assessment work to others. You are also expected to provide evidence of wide and critical reading, usually by using appropriate academic references.
In order to minimise incidents of academic fraud, this course may require that some of its assessment tasks, when submitted to Canvas, are electronically checked through Turnitin. This software allows for text comparisons to be made between your submitted assessment item and all other work to which Turnitin has access.
Assessment: Additional Requirements
Eligibility for Supplementary Assessment
Your eligibility for supplementary assessment in a course is dependent of the following conditions applying:
(a) The final mark is in the percentage range 47% to 49.4%; and
(b) The course is graded using the Standard Grading scale
Assessment: Submission penalties
Late submissions may be penalised up to and including the following maximum percentage of the assessment task’s identified value, with weekdays and weekends included in the calculation of days late:
(a) One day: deduct 5%;
(b) Two days: deduct 10%;
(c) Three days: deduct 20%;
(d) Four days: deduct 40%;
(e) Five days: deduct 60%;
(f) Six days: deduct 80%;
(g) Seven days: A result of zero is awarded for the assessment task.
The following penalties will apply for a late submission for an online examination:
Less than 15 minutes: No penalty
From 15 minutes to 30 minutes: 20% penalty
More than 30 minutes: 100% penalty
Links to relevant University policy and procedures
For more information on Academic Learning & Teaching categories including:
- Assessment: Courses and Coursework Programs
- Review of Assessment and Final Grades
- Supplementary Assessment
- Central Examinations
- Deferred Examinations
- Student Conduct
- Students with a Disability
For more information, visit https://www.usc.edu.au/explore/policies-and-procedures#academic-learning-and-teaching
Student Charter
UniSC is committed to excellence in teaching, research and engagement in an environment that is inclusive, inspiring, safe and respectful. The Student Charter sets out what students can expect from the University, and what in turn is expected of students, to achieve these outcomes.
General Enquiries
For course-specific questions, contact your teaching staff or Course Coordinator.
For other enquiries or to access support, please contact Student Central: