Game Studies Course #10: Similar Courses At Other Universities

I received an email this week from a fellow college professor contemplating a games studies course for his university. He was curious what other Game Studies and Game Design courses and degrees influenced the design of our course at Taylor University. There were quite a few degree programs that influenced the initial concept and proposal for the course. These degree programs helped us defend the viability of the course to the academic leadership at Taylor and gave us a framework to develop our course proposal and syllabus.

Degree Programs:

• Digital Game Studies Minor – Miami University of Ohio
  http://miamioh.edu/cca/aims/academics/game-design-minor/index.html
• Game Studies – Purdue Polytechnic – Purude University
  https://polytechnic.purdue.edu/degrees/game-studies
• Game Studies Certificate – University at Buffalo
  http://mediastudy.buffalo.edu/undergraduate/game-studies-certificate/games-studies-certificate-overview/
• BS in Game Design – Indiana University
  http://mediaschool.indiana.edu/degrees-2/undergraduate-curriculum/bachelor-of-science-in-game-design/
• Minor in Game Design and Development – Michigan State University
  http://cas.msu.edu/programs/undergraduate-studies/degree-programs/game-design-development/
• BS and Masters in Game Design – Full Sail University
  http://www.fullsail.edu/degrees/campus/game-design-bachelors

Most recently, Dr. Denning has been in communication with a college associate at another university, Dr. Morgan McGuire. He has taught variations of his “Creating Games” course for fifteen years now: first for high school sctudents, then at Brown University, and now eight years at Williams College. He has been invaluable in helping us learn some of the challenges of teaching a course and a great influence on many aspects of the design of our course at Taylor.

• Dr. McGuire’s CS 107 – Creating Games – Williams College
  http://graphics.williams.edu/courses/cs107/s15/

As you can see from many of the degree programs and courses, they are heavily focused on digital game design. Our course still has a focus in digital games design as it is being offered by the Systems program, but takes a more hybrid approach and even allows the final class project to be a hybrid or tabletop game if the students so desire. Dr. Denning will be focused on the digital elements of the course while my focus will be the tabletop elements. We will share in the more general discussion topics like audience, mechanics, faith in a gaming and the game industry.

What other similar courses should we be reviewing as we finalize the design for our first semester offering of Game Studies at Taylor University?