Animation Courses

Game Media Production II

Course No. GAME 321  Credits: 3.0

This course serves as a continuation of the fundamentals and theory application of game development. The course materials and projects will help students understand how to further develop game concepts, mechanics, interaction design, and prototype the game through the use of animation and simple interactivity. The course will require students to work individually to design game narratives, concepts, design documents (art assets, technical assets and sounds assets) and demonstrate the playability of the prototype game. The course exposes students to examples of the current work and research in game theory and narrative design, which are integral to development of successful polished games. Students will be exposed to industry-specific games with the requirement to test, analyze and review. These examples, along with specific lecture topics and materials, will allow the student to understand how to continue to develop their own game projects by learning specific research methods for understanding content, players and engagement strategies. This course does not require programming skill or experience per se; however it is understood that the student usage of Unity (in the Game Development SP2014 course,) and/or UDK may be used for projects with limitations on coded interactions and time constraints. If you wish to create a digital game but do not have technical experience to achieve the full results, you will be required to show an animation of the game concept and prototype in action, with narrative, character/environmental style, GUI, HUD, scoring, mechanics, level design, and instructional prompts. Alternately, you may choose to work on a non-digital game, which notes a similar level of complexity. Please note that this course welcomes both digital and non-digital games, but that the requirements and milestones for each type of game will be somewhat different and require the development of design related documentation, assets and research. 3 credits.