The Game Center will be creating new courses that complement that existing game-related classes currently available throughout the University. These new courses will seek to provide an overall conceptual framework for the study of games and contribute a solid theoretical foundation on top of which students can build their own focus according to their interests and skills.
In addition to offering new classes, the Game Center provides a course guide to existing NYU classes related to games and game design. Download our current catalog of game related courses which are available this fall throughout NYU.
Guide to Fall 2009 Game Courses
SUMMER: Game Design Summer Workshop
Course Number: H95.1604.01 undergrad and H95.2604.01 grad
Meeting Monday and Wednesday from 1 to 4 pm Start date: 6/29/09
For directions on how to register if you are a non-NYU student, go to: http://www.nyu.edu/summer/2009/summerny/enroll-instructions.html
The Game Design Workshop is an intensive, 6-week studio course combining lectures, seminars, and hands-on projects to teach the creative and technical skills of digital game development. The workshop will take a group of students through a comprehensive course that reflects the various skills and disciplines that are brought together in modern game development: game design, programming, visual art, animation, sound design, and writing. In addition, the workshop will situate these disciplines within a larger context of game literacy and a historical and critical understanding of games as cultural objects.
It will cover the following disciplines: Game Design, Programming, Visual Art, Animation, Sound Design and Writing, Critical and Historical Perspective.
FALL: Introduction to Video Games
INSTRUCTOR: Jesper Juul
Course Number: H95.1606.001
Meeting Wednesday from 2 to 4:45 pm Start date: 09/09/09
This class is an overview of the field of video 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.
FALL: Introduction to Game Design
INSTRUCTOR: Eric Zimmerman
Course Number: H95.1605.001
Meeting Thursday from 9:30 to 12:15 pm Start date: 09/10/09
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