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CSCI E-62: Modern Mobile Development Fall Term 2013

September 3rd – December 17

Tuesdays 5:30pm – 7:30pm

DCE, 53 Church St. 202 (PC Classroom)

Instructor Information

Instructor Email Office Location & Hours

Bob Familiar

Edwin Guarin

familiar@fas.harvard.edu

edwinguarin@fas.harvard.edu

By Appointment

By Appointment

General Information

Description

This course details how to use a lean start-up approach to designing, coding, publishing and marketing apps and games for Windows Phone. Students learn modern mobile app and game development using a combination of lectures and hands-on labs. They use cross-platform tools such as Construct 2 for game development and XAML/C# for app development. Students learn how to invoke asynchronous APIs, bind data to visual controls, leverage sensors and the cloud, and take advantage of live tiles and push notifications. Students also learn how to market and monetize their apps and games. Students may count two of the following courses toward a degree, but not all three: CSCI E-62, CSCI E-65, and CSCI E-164

Prerequisites

A good working knowledge and experience with object-oriented languages such as Java or C#.

Course schedule and requirements

This course will meet from 5:30pm – 7:30pm on Tuesdays from September 3rd to December 17. Class meetings will consist of lectures and lab exercises, applying in-class learnings and topic discussions. A PC/Laptop with Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 – this software will be provided to you. If you have a Mac, you can use Boot Camp (preferred) or Parallels. Each student will also receive a Windows Phone for deployment testing. Each student will also have access to Microsoft Dreamspark which will provide a Windows Phone Developer Subscription, Visual Studio Professional and Windows 8.

Expectations and Goals

Students are expected to develop 1 casual game and 1 app during the course and submit them to the marketplace. In addition the students will learn how to market their app by creating an App Marketing web site and use social networks to drive downloads.

[GRADING RUBRIC]

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Course Materials

Required Materials

Will be provided to you prior to each meeting.

Optional Materials

The Lean Startup

Authors: Eric Ries

ISBN 978-0307887894

Essential Windows Phone 8 (2nd Edition)

Authors: Sean Wildermuth

ISBN-10: 032190494X | ISBN-13: 978-0321904942 | Edition: 2

Course Schedule

Week Date Topic

1 September 3 Lean Startup Theory and the App Economy

2 September 10 2D Casual Game Development Part 1

3 September 17 2D Casual Game Development Part 2

4 September 24 Marketing and Monetizing Your App or Game

5 October 1 The App Store Submission Process

6 October 8 Modern App Visual Design

7 October 15 Application Runtime Lifecycle Management

8 October 22 Language Primer: XAML/C#

9 October 29 The Wonderful World of Open Data APIs

10 November 5 Navigation and Data Binding

11 November 12 Sensors and Services

12 November 19 Mobile Apps and the Cloud – Azure Mobile Services

13 November 26 Live Tiles and Push Notifications

14 December 3 Introducing Windows 8.1

15 December 10 Student App/Game Project Showcase

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Project Submission Schedule – 5:00pm deadline on the Course Website

Date Subject

September 24 Game prototype

October 8 Game Submitted

October 15 Marketing Web Site Launched

November 12 App prototype

December 3 App Submitted

December 10 Marketing Web Site Updated

Additional Information and Resources

Dreamspark

http://www.dreamspark.com

Microsoft Developer Network

http://developer.microsoft.com

Windows Phone Developer Portal

http://dev.windowsphone.com

Microsoft AppBuilder Network

http://phone.windowsstore.com

Boston Windows App Developer Meetup

http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Windows-App-Developers