Fall 2024 Semester Courses
Game Design Fundamentals (GAME 10100)
This course introduces the core concepts of game design. Students learn central features of games including mechanics, difficulty, meaningful choice, system design, and fun. Assignments in class are the creation of non-digital games through an iterative design process that teaches essential ideas of prototyping, experimentation, and testing. This class prepares students for all types of game development by establishing fundamentals of the game design process.
Digital Game Development I (GAME 11100)
This class introduces students to digital game development through the game engine Unity. Students learn the basics of the Unity interface and the fundamentals of programming in C#. Students will create simple game prototypes as assignments to learn core programming concepts. No prior programming knowledge is necessary, although assignments will be tailored to individual student's programming experience.
Games and Their History (GAME 10200)
Games and Their History looks at contemporary games from a historical lens by analyzing how modern games directly reference historical precedents. The goal of the course is to analyze successful modern games aesthetically and culturally through close readings and seeing how the games evolved from previous games from history. The class will incorporate lectures, reading, discussion, and weekly play of games; assignments include keeping a journal of gameplay and writing game analysis essays. Students will learn how game mechanics intersect to form particular genres and how game systems can be combined to create original concepts.
Representation and Identity in Games (GAME 10300)
This discussion-based class explores how games have dealt with questions of identity. By looking at specific games and writings about games that ask questions about the role of race, gender, sexuality, and class, the course critically examines how games have dealt (or not dealt) with these issues. A variety of speakers representing different parts of the industry present their own experiences and work on these topics. Assignments ask students to apply the ideas they’ve explored in class readings, play, and conversations to the games and game culture they consume.
In this class, students look at the discipline of level design, a critical skill in professional game development. This is a hands-on design class in which student make levels for a variety of types of games. Students learn techniques of both parameterized and instantiated level design and see the techniques involved in game design across a variety of game styles.
Team-Based Development (GAME 30100)
This studio introduces students to core development process at work in games today: Agile Methodology. Students are organized into teams and work together on short games projects in which they rotate roles. Teams are required to maintain task lists, create project documentation, run scrum meetings and keep track of project hours, and work with code repositories and project management software. Students work on three digital game projects during the course of the semester and the process used on each project is a model of professional game development practice.
UX/UI Design for Games (GAME 32100)
Games present a unique set of user experience problems to users including the instruction of controls, the delivery of just-in-time information, complex menus or progress maps, and scannable information displays. This course teaches students how to design screens, user flows, menus, and feedback to facilitate ease-of-use and comprehensibility. Students work on user stories, wireframes, and screen mocks to explore core principles of user interface design and visual communication.
This course looks at key scholarship on games and introduces students to canonical critical writing about games. Looking at diverse topics such as formal and informal rules, abstract game design principles of challenge and expectation, identity related questions of inclusion and
audience, and roles of game communities and cultures, students are invited to take part in the academic discourse around game design and game play and interrogate the definition, meaning, and function of games. The class consists of reading key articles and chapters by noted game theorists and critics and assignments in which students pursue their own arguments about games.
Project-based Development (GAME 30200)
A focused class on team-based development, students model client relations by working on a specific serious or brand based game for the entire semester. Students pick a focused role on a game team (whether that be programmer, designer, artist, or producer) and then work
together to create the game through a set of milestones. The goal of the course is to provide a reinforcement of Agile Development techniques on a large team project that emulates the pivots and challenges of working with external partners. (Note that as external partners are connected to the program, the class might be a collaborative space in which a brand or subject matter expert works directly with students in the creation of a project.)
Digital Game Development II (GAME 11200)
This class looks at common code patterns used in game programming including player controls, physics, collision, simple AI, and state machines. Students use Unity to make simple games that utilize these patterns as a series of exercises and thereby build a collection of game systems that can be re-used in future game projects. All programming in the class is C# and geared towards game development. Students should have previous experience studying object-oriented programming, either in Digital Game Development 1 or any other C-based programming language course work or study, as the class will assume basic familiarity with code.
Digital Game Development II (GAME 21100)
In this studio class, students go deeper into the study of code patterns of games. In this course, students work on small game projects exploring more sophisticated functionality around animation, state machines, polish, and optimization. In the second half of class, students chose a game project to work on and, scoping that project with the instructor, spend the remainder of the course developing an original digital prototype in Unity.
Unreal Development (GAME 21200)
Unreal is the other major development platform for games. This course introduces students to the Unreal development environment and programming in C++ for game development. A series of focused game assignments allow students to translate their game programming knowledge to the new platform. Students complete the class by creating their own original game prototype in Unreal.
This course introduces students to the visual design basics that are necessary for game creation. The class looks at examples from games to see how core design concepts are used to communicate information, draw attention, mark saliency, and create stylized visual identities. Topics include color theory, composition, typography, and other key ideas of visual design. Students become familiar with the Adobe tools, Illustrator and Photoshop, as part of their design practice.
2D Asset Production and Pipelines (GAME 12200)
2D art remains a major part of much game development, from casual games to the interfaces of major AAA titles. This class looks at the core 2D art needs of games and introduces students to the workflow of creating and integrating 2D assets into games. Topics covered include sprite sheets, menu screens, pixel art, and digital illustration, using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Students also learn pipelines to prepare assets and deliver them into Unity.
3D Asset Production and Pipelines (GAME 22100)
This course provides a comprehensive foundation of 3D asset development using the industry standard tool Maya. Students learn core techniques of modeling, rigging, texturing and animating 3D assets including game environments, characters, and static assets. In addition to creating assets, students learn techniques to prepare and deliver assets for programmer use in Unity and Unreal.
Playing with Stories: Narrative and Interactivity (GAME 20200)
From branching YouTube videos to major digital games to immersive theatre, more and more forms of storytelling are including audience participation. This course explores different techniques of audience interaction and agency to see how narratives change when users take a more active role and to discover effective tropes of interaction for story. Students look at work from a variety of media from the web to games to performance to user generated systems to see how they work and what new work can be made with those forms.
Designing Games for Impact (GAME 20300)
Games are much more than entertainment nowadays; games have a role in education, health care, journalism, research, and public policy. This class explores the techniques of instrumentalized design–how games can be used to communicate messages, persuade users, and train behaviors. Students look at examples on how games have been used effectively on a variety of subjects and how they researched subject matters to find key design goals and create mechanics that achieve those goals.
Critical Game Design (GAME 33200)
Critical design is the practice of using design principles to make art objects that critique use, culture, or political topics. Games have been used critically by designers since their inception and this class looks at the way that games can subvert expectations of the medium or to make statements. Looking at writing around the artistic possibilities of games and studying specific challenging games. This class gives students the chance to explore what games can do and what messages they can deliver.
Game Producing and Budgeting (GAME 24100)
This class takes students deeper into the skills and demands of game producing. Students learn critical skills of budgeting, scheduling, and handling the marketing and business needs of projects. Key topics include contracts, timelines, testing plans, project documentation, and client communications. Students also simulate the launch of a game and work through all the ancillary and marketing needs the games have. Students can bring any game they are working on in any other class as a case-study for the production skills they are learning.
Special Topics in Game Development (GAME 31110)
Special Topics in Game Design is created to serve short-term and experimental instructional purposes for the Digital Game Development degree. Some topics are things that are immediately relevant to industry but not things expected to last permanently in game development. This could include specific technologies, work practices, or cultural moments. In many cases, special topics classes could be tied to visiting/temporary faculty at CCNY interested in teaching on a topic that is not normally offered. Other topics are experiments with course material that could become more permanent electives or paths through the degree. This would be likely because of developments in the game industry that are covered by the current plan of study where a chance to incubate a course would be valuable. All special topics classes teach a self-contained intermediate to expert skill related to a limited aspect of the game development process. These could be tied to game design, programming, visual art, sound design, producing, writing, QA, marketing, cultural analysis, or aesthetic theory about games.
Senior Project Prototyping (GAME 40100)
The culmination of the college experience is the creation of a large team capstone game project. In this class, students form final teams and ideate their game ideas. During this course, students engage in key prototyping of core mechanics and testing key assumptions, working from their particular role to create initial materials and essential functionality. Throughout the semester, the students create documentation of critical tests and future design steps. By the end of the semester, students have a final prototype of the game and a plan for the work of the second semester.
Senior Project Development (GAME 40200)
The second semester of the Senior Project takes the prototype and documentation of the first semester and allows students to continue work to a final launchable project. The class consists of studio work on the game and presentations of the game idea as sample pitches and messages for sales and fundraising. The class culminates in a presentation of the final game in a student show and the release of the game on a public platform.
Last Updated: 04/23/2025 15:32