Building games through code and collaboration

Intro to game development is about guiding students through every part of a video game engine. Individually, they're learning a little bit about everything they're going to need to learn to make a video game. And then they come back in the collaborative game production class, and they're able to work together in a team on the thing that they were most interested in. Some of them are going to do programing. Some of them are going to be doing 3D modeling or drawing or texturing, making sprites, making music, talking about the story level design. So they all get to work together on the part that is most compelling to them. If you've ever had a passion or a dream towards game creation, if you just had as a fleeting interest, this at least lets you dive a little bit that desire or that want with guidance enough that it won't be overwhelming, as I feel like for beginner artists, a lot of those pursuits can be. But instead, allows you to explore this desire within reason so that, like, you can get to a point that feels both satisfying and educational. It's so much more inventive and so much more free form than I would have ever given it credit. When I first heard about this major, I was so streamlined on one thing that I could never dream of all the possibilities there in. This was like a career path that I never thought of. I've never thought of like working in like the game industry or anything like that. And taking this class has been a huge part of my enjoyment in the program. I've got to learn coding and a whole bunch of other things in Unreal Engine. That was my first time doing stuff like that before. It was really an eye opening experience for me because until you try something you like, never know how it's going to end up. You just never know what you are interested in. So I think taking this class opened the door to like, a lot more possibilities for me that I wouldn't have imagined before. One unique aspect is that what genre you do, what game you do, like anything, any aspect of it, is up to you. All of our games were vastly different. Like in terms of what they were, what we were going for, like ours was our 3D platformer, another group, they did a 2D platformer, while the third group did like a story based like walk through like type game. And it was very different for all of us. And it's that kind of freedom, not only in the process of making it, but coming up what we wanted to do a part of it, creative like freedom with this class that I really liked. It was really fun to watch them come together as groups to really enjoy getting to make something together. One thing that you really learned throughout this major is like the benefit of collaboration. If you just start and give a little every single day, you can make something beyond your imagination. And in the end, it's just video games and. And how could I be mad about doing that?