Academics

The NYU Game Center has been offering classes on game design, game production and game studies since its establishment in 2008. Starting Fall 2011 the Game Center will be offering a Minor in Game Design which is open to all New York University undergraduates. We are developing a two-year Graduate Program in Game Design which is being prepared for submission to the New York State Board of Education for official approval.

The Game Center has recruited some of the top game scholars and designers for its faculty, including Jesper Juul and Eric Zimmerman, who have evolved a curriculum with a focus on game design as creative practice and a unique blend of deep design training and forward-looking aesthetic and cultural analysis.

Minor in Game Design
The NYU Game Center’s minor in Game Design is an 18-credit minor that will provide students with a robust set of tools for the design, production, and study of games. The core of the minor consists of 12 credits from the Game Center’s diverse offering of courses on game design, production, and theory. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of game design, the remaining 6 elective credits can be drawn from a wide range of programs throughout the university. The Game Center will maintain a list of pre-approved electives, organized in broad categories that will allow students to easily receive the minor based on their specialization. Additionally, students are welcome to submit unlisted courses related to Game Design to a Game Center advisor, who will approve these classes on a case-by-case basis.

With a strong base of dynamic Game Center courses, a simple and open process for accepting courses from other parts of the University, and guidance from the Game Center’s faculty, the Game Design Minor will prepare students for the multi-disciplinary and rapidly evolving field of Game Design.

For the full Game Design Minor Document click here.

Click here for our Fall 2011 Course Guide
The NYU Game Center has not only been working on developing world class courses on game design, development, and studies, but has also undergone creating a course guide of the game related courses NYU currently offers. If you have any suggestions for game related courses offered at the university that we haven’t mentioned, please let us know at gamecenter@nyu.edu.

Game Center Student Community

Internships and Job Opportunities
Over the past few years we have been hard at work building a network with local game development companies throughout New York. If you’re a student and would like to get first word on their internship and job posting you can either join our mailing list (below) or view our “Internships and  Job Opportunities” page. To request access to this page, please email gamecenter@nyu.edu.

Game Center Mailing List
Interested in joining the Game Center student mailing list? Request for membership by emailing our Program Coordinator at gamecenter@nyu.edu.

Game Center Courses

Game Design

Introduction to Game Design - OART-UT 1605/2605
Offered: Fall and Spring 
This class is an intensive, hands-on workshop addressing the complex challenges of game design. The premise of the class is that all games, digital and non-digital, share common fundamental principles, and that understanding these principles is an essential part of designing successful games. Learning how to create successful non-digital games provides a solid foundation for the development of digital games.

In this workshop, students will; analyze existing digital and non-digital games, taking them apart to understand how they work as interactive systems; create a number of non-digital games in order to master the basic design principles that apply to all games regardless of format; critique each other’s work, developing communication skills necessary for thriving in a collaborative field; explore the creative possibilities of this emerging field from formal, social, and cultural perspectives; develop techniques for fast-prototyping and iterative design that can be successfully applied to all types of interactive projects.

Advanced Game Design - OART-UT 1609/2609
Offered: Spring Only
Prerequisites: Introduction to Game Design
The focus of this class is the actual creation of several non-digital games. Students deeply explore advanced topics in game design, wrestling with complex and challenging problems, such as formal play-testing procedures, balancing game economies, and designing games for learning. The class will cover both the craft and the culture of making games, and has a particular emphasis on how designers communicate their ideas. Although most of the projects will take the form of non-digital design, the course will address the application of ideas and procedures to digital games.

Game Production

Game Development: Modding - OART-UT 1610/2610 
Offered: Fall Only
In this course, students get practice building game play experiences through a series of short-cycle exercises. Students work in small teams to create and tune gaming experiences in a range of game genres, using the game engine that they will use in Game Studio (a semester-long project class). The course introduces students to production roles, playtesting, considerations of audience and platform, and other practical concerns in building games.

Game Development Workshop – OART-UT 1612/2612
Offered: Spring Only
This course reflects the various skills and disciplines that are brought together in modern game development: game design, programming, visual art, animation, sound design, and writing. The workshop will situate these disciplines within a larger context of game literacy and a historical and critical understanding of games as cultural objects. Classroom lectures and lab time will all be used to bring these different educational vectors together into a coherent whole; the workshop will be organized around a single, long-term, hands-on, game creation project. Working in small groups under the close supervision of instructors, students will collaborate on the creation of a playable game. As a creative constraint to help inspire them and guide their designs, the students will be given a theme to express in their game projects.

Game Scholarship

Games 101 – OART-UT 1600/2600
Offered: Fall and Spring
Games 101 is the foundational course for the NYU Game Center.  The focus of Games 101 is game literacy – a shared understanding of games as complex cultural and aesthetic objects. The class will incorporate lectures, discussion, readings, and writing assignments, but the primary activity of the class is critical play – playing games in order to better understand and appreciate them. The class will cover games on and off the computer, including classic and contemporary board and card games, sports, and games on the PC, internet, and consoles.

Thinking About Games – OART-UT 1606/2606
Offered: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer
This class is an overview of the field of games that approaches them from several theoretical and critical perspectives. No special theoretical background or prior training is needed to take the course, but to have had a broad practical experience with and basic knowledge of games is a distinct advantage. Also, an interest in theoretical and analytical issues will help. You are expected to actively participate in the lectures, which are dialogic in form, with ample room for discussion.

The course will prepare the student to: Understand and discuss games from a theoretical perspective, as well as the components of a game; Apply new theories and evaluate them critically; Assess and discuss game concepts and the use of games in various contexts; Analyze games, and understand and apply a range of analytical methods.

Advanced Topics in Game Studies – OART-UT 1611/2611
Offered: Fall Only
Prerequisites: Thinking About Games
 Advanced Topics in Game Studies is a category of class that allows students to focus in-depth on a specific topic in game studies. The focus of the course will vary from semester to semester, but will be based on current issues in video game theory, video game design and video game culture. Some example courses include: Social Games, Games and Storytelling, Convention and Experiment in Video Games, and Casual Games. Students will actively participate in the development of video game theory.