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Students Help Design Game Curriculum

Posted by Zonk on from the designers-of-tomorrow dept.

J writes "In contrast to current stories about publishers creating their own design courses comes news from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Their new "Video Game Design & Development" Concentration was the cover story of LaLouisiane, The University's magazine. This concentration resulted from a collaboration between the Computer Science faculty and members of the Student Video Game Alliance, a student group that had been tackling game development on their own time. The first Video Game Design and Development course began this Spring semester."

5 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Washinton University has a similar program by NereusRen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Washington University in St. Louis is starting a game dev class, also initiated by a game dev student group: the Wash U Game-dev Society. It's not a full curriculum yet, but members of the CS faculty have expressed enthusiasm for the project, and we hope to expand it.

  2. Not faulting anyone, but not impressed... by crawdaddy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just dropped this course last week. I was kind of disappointed by it. The texts are a book on game design and Sam's Teach Yourself Game Programming in 24 Hours. The classes are fairly unstructured. Either the professor is running down bullet points from the next chapter on game design principles or we're working on our projects. So far, two projects have been assigned for the semester. One has come and gone and the other was just assigned. The first was an independent game (think "flash game") using a program called Game Maker. The second is a group project involving Game Maker.

    I'm holding out until next semester, when there is supposed to be someone hired from the game industry specifically for the purpose of teaching this course. I have high hopes for the curriculum as a whole, but think I'd rather reap the benefits from lessons learned by the inaugural group rather than stumble through unchartered territory.

    1. Re:Not faulting anyone, but not impressed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I go to WPI I just finished our second Game dev major class. This one was the first class in game design (the first flass being game analysis). The game design class also used game maker in a group to create a game and go through the process. It was all about process and to only create a prototype due to our terms being 7 weeks. It was I think a good intro course but nothing special. It is just like software engineering class but point towards games with a little less paperwork. It wasn't bad some of the game are atleast interesting, while some are terrible. The professor is supposed to post links of everyone project soon. http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~id111x/c05/ that is a link to the class website if anyone cares.

  3. Huh? by shoptroll · · Score: 2, Informative

    Amazing that WPI hasn't recieved recognition here for the new major that's already in effect since late this fall (2004).

    This program has been completely designed by the faculty at campus with input from student groups, alumni, and some industry contacts.

    The first course under the new program started in B-Term (October - December).

    http://www.wpi.edu/+IMGD if anyone cares.

    --
    Insert Sig Here
  4. I'm in that class. by duncanbojangles · · Score: 5, Informative
    I attend the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as a Computer Science major and I'm in their first class. I'm kinda disappointed in it, though, for a few reasons.
    • The instructor knew absolutely nothing about game design and programming, or even games in general before deciding to be the instructor of the course. So, he doesn't have quite the same grasp on the concept that most college students interested in game design and programming do.
    • If you'll notice I've been saying game design AND programming. Personally, I feel the two are different aspects of making a game. I couldn't design a fun game to save my life (and I've tried) but I enjoy and feel I'm fairly proficient programming games. I thought the course would cover both aspects but so far it's been only game design using an application called Game Maker. I'll admit, the application is nice and very well put together, but it tries to completely remove the coding portion of creating a game.
    • The programming portion of the course is going to be implementing the game engine in C++ found in the book Sam's Teach Yourself Game Programming in 24 Hours which seems kinda lame. He does want us to extend the game engine, but it's still just cut and pasting.
    • Finally, the whole damn course is Windows-centric. I'm not a Windows hater, but I really don't enjoy using it if I don't have to. I proposed to the professor before the course was even an option that he look into something cross platform like SDL, which will run on pretty much any operational operating system available now. It also simplifies many things like setting up a window, handling input(keyboard, mouse, joystick), and even network code.
    Hopefully the class will get better this semester or in future sememsters, but as of now, the whole "Game" curriculum seems pretty lame.