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Students Help Design Game Curriculum
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."
Wow! I guess this means the video games generation is coming of age. It's quite a pleasure seeing the art form that is video games flourishing and taking its place alongside other art forms. I wonder if the Renaissance felt a little like this, except for electricity and indoor plumbing.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
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.
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.
I attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor from 2000-2003, and majored in Entertainment Software Development, a concentration that I designed myself. Many universities will allow you to create a custom major that is NOT a General Studies degree, and this can be an excellent alternative. It will allow you to take a heavily cross-curricular schedule, which is critical in a good game design degree. Here are some of the classes I took:
Media Violence I & II
Computer Game Programming
Software Engineering
Computer Animation I & II
Cinematic Techniques
Film Critique
Creative Writing
Medieval English Classics
I still believe that the best game programming education is the one you do in your spare time, but you can cater college to help support your outside interests! Do not settle when you can have more!
Everyone and their mom claims to be a game designer today. Artists and programmers can get in the industry, but if you are trying to enter as a game designer, good luck. There's only a handful of playable games created each year, so there really isn't that many game designers with a job.
So you can do the math. The market is already flooded with game designers, and most of them aren't very good.
God spoke to me.
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
- 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.The book used for this course is being judged by it's cover. It's really not that bad. The big problem with books in game dev is that there are none out there aimed at teaching people in an academic setting. Yes, win32 does suck, but the book does a good job of hiding those calls in objects. Using SDL would be nice, but it by itself doesn't do a whole lot of good since you still need to build a game engine on top of it. The University doesn't have the resources to do that and I don't know of any books that cover teaching how to build a game engine with SDL. If you have a better book, please share it because I've been looking.
Taking this course when you already have a significant amount of game experience is like taking a beginning CS course when you already know the basics. But for most people in the course, they don't have that experience.
GameMaker rocks. Sure, the games the class has made in it are "flash like", but Picasso didn't just start painting masterpieces. The point of using it is to get people to learn *The Process* of developing games. The technical side is not being overlooked, but for the limited amount of courses we have for gamedev, I feel it's the best approach.
People can discount the members of SVGA for not producing games up to their standards, but it exists so that people of any skill level can get together with others to produce games. There have been troubles with trying to accomondate different skill levels in the past, but it's something we're always trying to fix. (Assuming people tell us what's wrong) Regardless, without the countless hours the men and women in this group have spent working with faculty and going through red tape, the curriculum and course would not be a reality. I'd have rather spend that time playing Unreal Tournament, but I didn't because I want those that come after me to not be as lost in trying to start in game development as I was.
-J
Founder, SVGA Lafayette