Game Design and Development
About the Program
Do you want to form your own indie game company? Do you enjoy programming and design prototyping? If so, pursuing a Bachelor of Innovation in Game Design & Development may be right for you.
Game Design & Development majors gain a foundation in the basics of game design and development, both in understanding programming requirements and technical design issues, and the flexibility to pursue special interests through concentration courses.
What do Game Design & Development B.I. students study?
The Bachelor of Innovation™ in Game Design and Development (GDD) is a degree within the Bachelor of Innovation family. It is a rigorous technical curriculum based heavily on programming and game design topics with important cross-disciplinary breadth in art, music and other fields. The program as a whole will let students build the foundational knowledge and develop the skills necessary to form their own independent game development companies or to pursue employment in the games industry. In addition to traditional games for entertainment, the game industry includes Serious Games (games designed for simulation and training, educational games, games for health care, and so on) and Casual Games (small, short games played in a Web browser or on a cell phone, for example).
Courses
Explores the various game design decisions required when targeting games for various diverse populations. Students will learn how to consider gender, ethnicity, and other diversity dimensions through numerous game design projects.
This course applies standard approaches from the video game industry for game design and development in a team environment. Students will learn about and use project management, team management, pre-production and post-production, and testing techniques on their projects.
The purpose of this course is to teach the Artificial Intelligence techniques that are most important in game development. Topics include Finite State Machines, pathfinding, emergent behavior, and other pertinent topics. The course also shows how these concepts apply to the most common game genres, as well as addressing the specific issues associated with each genre.
Students in this course individually design and develop a game available to the public for purchase or free play. Developed games will be unique student Intellectual Property and will be commercial-quality implementations of student game concepts.