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Education Entertainment Games

Students Help Design Game Curriculum 45

Posted by Zonk 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."
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Students Help Design Game Curriculum More

Students Help Design Game Curriculum

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  • Coming Of Age (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @04:54PM (#11816928) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re:Coming Of Age (Score:5, Funny)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation@gmai l . c om> on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @04:56PM (#11816950) Journal
      I wonder if the Renaissance felt a little like this, except for electricity and indoor plumbing.

      One difference is that while the Renaissance had way better resolution than today's video games, the frame rate was absolutely lousy.
    • I wouldn't exactly call games an art form just yet. If we're talking about them in the same vein as movies being considered "art", then I might be ok with calling them art.

      I've yet to see any game as deep as works of Shakespeare, Dante, etc. Let alone mainstream games that tackle social issues, etc.

      • Ever played Silent Hill 2?

        Don't want to spoil the ending but it's the creepiest and most depressing game I've ever played because it flat out addresses the aftermath of a controversial "social issue."

        .
        • I mean don't get me wrong, I grew up with computers, video games and the like, and still, in my thirties, play the occasional game. However, going as far as to elevate game making as an "art form" shows that you really should gain appreciation for other, real, art forms. No insult intended, of course.
          • Why would you assume that I don't have an appreciation for other "real" art forms? I'm very fond of Matthew Barney
            & Gerhard Richter, my taste in music includes serious 20th century composers such as Xenakis and Stockhausen, (and the avant garde in general from Merzbow to 12k records), a few of my best friends are architects or art historians, and one has been working at the Modern Museam of Art in NYC for the past 3 years.

            When you make assumptions and generalizations about the cultural sophistication
      • Why are games so often held up against literature? Some games have narrative elements, but it is hardly a requirement of the form.

        You don't see the works of Michelangelo tackling social issues. What about the music of Bach? Still art.

        Remember, we're talking about games here. Not movies, not novels, not operas, not symphonies. These are games. A game can have deep narrative and "tackle social issues" all you want. But if the gameplay is crap, then it is not a good game.

        Is Tetris any less "art" than

  • Washinton University has a similar program (Score:5, Informative)

    by NereusRen ( 811533 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @05:22PM (#11817281)
    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 [wugs.org]. 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.

  • Not faulting anyone, but not impressed... (Score:5, Informative)

    by crawdaddy ( 344241 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @05:24PM (#11817307)
    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 [gamemaker.nl]. 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.

    • Re:Not faulting anyone, but not impressed... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      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
    • Hey man, congratulations on dropping the course. I'm still in it hoping to just get a good grade to bring my GPA up. But yeah, you're right, the course doesn't seem to have any direction. You still interested in making a game? I've got one I've been working on for some time. And I'm not in the SVGA, 'cause I've seen the work they produce. Oh yeah, I'm Duncan. Drop me a line sometime at duncanbojangles @ cox-internet.com if you're ever interested.
    • I will note that the class isn't perfect now, but then again I see 150 students learning concepts that were never covered when I took it 6 years ago. Refinement comes with time, the instructor is probably testing to see what ideas work and don't work so he can make the class better. Granted the university might be hiring someone from the game industry or someone whose interests is games next semester, but why wait until next semester when you can act on your ideas now. The local group, SVGA, meets with t
      • I'd be happy to give my input, but the problem is that I don't think I'm in much of a position to steer the course. I'm also not sure too many of the students in there are, either.

        I actually have a game concept I'm currently developing and am not looking for any help at the moment. When it's been better developed, then I'll need to start considering game design details. I don't see that happening within the next 6 months, though, so I'm happy to wait for the next go-round of the course.

        As far as joinin

  • Made my own almost 4 years ago! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @05:49PM (#11817609)
    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!

  • Like the world needs game designers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @06:12PM (#11817845) Journal
    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.
    • seems to me there is a high demand for talented and creative game designers with new ideas for gameplay then.

      now where might the industry find people like that!
      not just out of college, never.

      • Re:Like the world needs game designers (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Its just like Hollywood's demand for writers. A ton of writers suck:just watch your average movie or television show. I'm not faulting the ones that are good. I'm saying the system isn't set up to identify and reward talent.
    • But you're a world-class game designer and you've never even shipped a working game! Doesn't that mean that there are thousands of thousands of world-class game designers out there?

    • Re:Like the world needs game designers (Score:4, Funny)

      by CrazyJim2 ( 857610 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:35PM (#11818768) Homepage
      CrazyJim1, has a point. I designed the best MMOFPSRPG ever. It is called Go-bots Online and it features Tekken-like FPS action with puzzle/rpg elements. I got an interview about it at Nintendo, but the boss of the company, Moto Miayata, would only offer me a 35% share in the company. My idea is worth billions so I told him to take a hike. I still work at the photocopier's in the student centre, but it is justa part time thing. I'll probably take my game to Sony where it'll be wicked on the virtual reality headset they are designing for the Playstation 4 (codenamed: Rocket-hilt Katana.)
    • The market is already flooded with game designers, and most of them aren't very good.

      Sounds like a good reason to start training up some decent ones then...

  • Huh? (Score:3, Informative)

    by shoptroll ( 544006 ) on Tuesday March 01, 2005 @07:37PM (#11818791)
    Amazing that WPI [wpi.edu] 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 [wpi.edu], alumni [dragonflygamedesign.com], and some industry contacts.

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

    http://www.wpi.edu/+IMGD [wpi.edu] if anyone cares.
    • That is one of the best and worst problem for WPI. They try hard to change with the times and turn corners with new courses etc. When the internet was booming, WPI had an insane amount of content change in the courses.

      The problem however is the loyalty to the professors. The academic has got to realize soon that not all professors can teach everything. Your course change, so should the professors.

  • I'm in that class. (Score:5, Informative)

    by duncanbojangles ( 787775 ) on Wednesday March 02, 2005 @12:34AM (#11820881)
    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 [cs.uu.nl]. 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 [amazon.com] 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 [libsdl.org], 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.
    • I have made note of your comments, but I will disagree with you on gamemaker. Granted it removes the whole coding an engine aspect of making games, but it does not remove you from coding. GameMaker does come with a scripting interface allowing you more control over the games you create and as anyone worth their salt knows being able to use scripts in an engine is very useful. I will admit that the first course is far from perfect but I also know that CMPS150 students currently are being taught concepts t

  • I have my doubts (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have my doubts about courses like this. Games are composed out of various disciplines, like: computers science (for your programming needs and maybe software enginering skills) and artists (2D and 3D artists, music composers, etc) (sorry for generalizing that). All these things pretty much already exist as seperate courses\studies where you actually learn the things to a certain degree.
    The other part, and maybe more important aspect of creating games, is creativity. Creativity still isn't something you ca
  • It's refreshing to see that the attitude to an underpowered course is "I want to be able to do this better" rather than "hey, this is easy". Though I guess that could be as much people being frustrated with a pointless course (is it at all useful? Preceding comments don't seem to think so), or even that it's only the proactive ones that are /.ers.

    I'll stick to the first idea, and hope that students really are trying these days. At least, a few of them :)

  • To Discount the naysayers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jBusy ( 863335 ) on Wednesday March 02, 2005 @11:11AM (#11823952)
    My special project for the past year has been to help design this course. No doubt some of the naysayers have their opinions because they don't know what goes on behind the scenes.

    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

  • I do not post this comment to be a troll, I post this comment because of its importance to students and their educations. I for one am excited about the new concentration on campus and currently we are working with the faculty right now to make it better. As an officer of the student group repsonsible for creating the game concentration mentioned in the article I for one glad to see that people have opinions about our first class, what I do not appreciate is the silence generated by it. Its hard to see p
    • I'm only silent at the moment because my current opinion of "I didn't like it" isn't constructive. I need to sit down and examine my experiences in the class and decide what I think needs to be changed, how, etc. I'd like to do some research into what's being done elsewhere to maybe get some insight into what the professionals (industry professionals, not education professionals) think is important. I'm planning on letting the people involved with the course and the department know how I feel, but I'd rat

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