Minor in Video Game Development

[kchironis]

Just checking out the forums at 11 pm and noticed this - I've seen it before, but only now after my freshman year do I realize that I've taken half the courses for this minor already and will be taking the ETB course this upcoming semester. This sounds way cooler than the Art minor I was going to pursue.

I would love to help make this a reality in any way I can. I don't know if there's much you need in terms of assistance, but... I'm here! I wasn't too active in GCS this past year because I was settling into my schoolwork, but I'll be at every meeting this year and I'm excited to be getting involved.

One question/request: would it be possible to substitute another possibility under the CS course section? I've taken Intro, but unless I'm mistaken, the other three programming courses are 300-400 level and would either have epic CS prereqs or be way out of my league. I'm looking to go into the writing/level design/worldbuilding/art side of gaming, and I'm a fair hand at scripting but pretty much a failure at legitimate programming.

[dboehle]

Oh wow, so turns out I suck at maintaining websites I don't use, so here's the link to the version that actually exists:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/dboehle/GameDevMinorProp.pdf

Anyway, thanks for your support! I would greatly appreciate help in talking to various faculty and convincing them that this is a worthwhile endeavor - in the past few months, I've met way too many people whose excellent undergrad CS schools offer full-fledged game development programs. We used to have a Game Programming professor in our CS staff, and I would love any support to help bring back game development to undergraduate academia.

Right now, two of the "one of the following" CS courses are HCI courses that don't actually have CS pre-requisites, other than into. I talked to the professor for that course, and he agreed that a motivated art major could take those courses, without having to take something crazy like Computer Graphics. So, the 400-something number is a little deceiving. The CS curriculum is constantly changing, though, so I may have to take a second look and see if there's a better combination.

One problem I'm running into with designing this minor is that I'm trying to accommodate everyone with less than a major's worth of units. With a minimum of almost 70 units, some of the professors I've talked to think it would be better as a major - which would ruin the point of the minor.

What do you think? By incorporating ETC courses, and hopefully getting one of their advisors to sign on (I'll be working very hard to talk with them), hopefully anyone from programmers to writers can get a worthwhile introduction to many academic facets of game development.

[kchironis]

Ahah, Google cache works miracles

I'll be taking Paolo Pedercini's game design ETB course this semester, so maybe he'd be a good source to ask about discussing a minor with someone higher up on the food chain? I'll poke around and see if there's anyone who'd be up to working with this to make it university-wide. Before I saw this post I was actually thinking of drafting one myself and talked to the self-defined major dean about it, but he didn't seem to really understand why a university-wide minor would be cool. He said such cases are very rare.

If there are no hardcore prereqs, I'll shoot for that 400-level course!

About the units - it is a pretty heavy minor, so maybe you could aim for a "customizable" minor? Maybe combine the ETB and CS courses into a pool of "electives" from which a couple courses must be picked, instead of making them all mandatory? That would probably drop the minor by 9-18 credits and make it a little more palatable for someone with a busy schedule.

If you need help getting in touch with ETC faculty, I might be able to help too. My boyfriend and his best friend are both current students there so they may know some people who could assist.

I love the diversity and focus of this minor and I'm super excited about it!

[dboehle]

I took Paolo's class last semester and might be helping out with it in the fall, so I'll definitely be in contact with him He's a great source for discussing art courses that might fit, but unfortunately the art department is completely changing up their electronic/interactive curriculum in the near future. Golan Levin is also a great person to talk to, especially since he's a more permanent faculty member, and I think he'll be in charge of some of those curriculum changes.

That's a good point about a pool of electives to choose from - I think my main idea was making sure someone could get a perspective from every field, but it should have fewer classes. Maybe instead of requiring a second programming class AND a second art class, I could combine the two into some sort of "advanced" category? Paolo's class won't be around forever, and I'm not sure how easy it is to get into the HCI classes, so that might be necessary anyway.

That's great that you have connections to the ETC! From the times I talked to faculty there they were extremely friendly and helpful, so hopefully it'll just be a matter of time to get someone to help out with the minor.

[kchironis]

If you come to help out, I guess I'll see you in class then Is it really a 6 person course like my OLR says, or is it bigger?

And I agree that requiring 15110 and an intro to art class could be a good core, with secondary courses being optional. I still don't think 70 units is -too- crazy for a minor - maybe just cutting out one class would do it?

What does Golan Levin teach? ETB?

[dboehle]

Last semester, Paolo's class started out with about 12 students, and then attendance slowly dropped down to about 6 or so. It was mostly project-based, with a lot of the work being outside class, but I know he wants to change it around a lot, so I guess we'll see how it goes! It was mostly full of art majors, but I personally feel like a lot of computer science students could gain a lot from it.

Golan Levin is officially an "Associate Professor of Electronic Art", and he teaches ETB: Special Topics in Interactive Art & Computational Design (I forget which number). There's an interesting movement in the art world with interactive exhibits, and I think experimental video games are slowly being incorporated into that scene. As far as I know, Golan's on the art/new media side, and Paolo's on the indie/experimental game side.

[EvilLlama]

So I only just saw this. Sadness.

So it looks like a pretty good plan, a lot of overlap with my self defined major

Some points though:
1) I would recommend the Child Development Psychology class with David Rackinson over Cognitive Psychology. Cog Sci is basically memorize a bunch of theories, many of which are complete BS, and spit them out for the tests. Which is a major pitfall with a lot of psych classes. In the Child Development Psychology class you actually go to the Children's School and perform observational studies. So you're actually able to apply what you learn--which is extremely crucial. Much of what applies to children still applies to grown ups anyways.

2) On Concept Studio hate: yes, sometimes Concept Studios can be very vague and subjective and don't really teach you any specific skill. The upside though is that you can work in ANY medium, yes, that includes games (board games too!). So it's really what you make of it. I personally really enjoyed those classes, and felt like I learned a lot. I don't think I'd knock off any of the courses you listed for them, so this point is basically just a heads up.

3) A lot of learning happens inside the classroom, but a lot happens outside as well. You also want to avoid being the Jack of All Trades Master of None pitfall. So it might be better to take up on previous suggestion of combining the ETB and CS electives into one pool and use the extra time to develop a portfolio of personal projects.Then again, it depends on what you can handle, overlap with major, and time left to take the courses.