Bringing a pioneer games project to the next level

Many universities with a Computer Science (CS) curriculum now offer a game development course in a variety of flavors. However, the fundamental standpoint that leads their particular course design is not always clear. Delft University of Technology introduced project-based education in its CS curriculum five years ago, including a second-year games project. Initially designed as little more than a companion to the computer graphics course, the games project matured into a large project integrating a broad range of computerscience topics. More importantly, though, the current games project brings CS students together for the first time to work in a realistic and interdisciplinary game development team, involving students pursuing a Game Design and Development degree at the Utrecht School of the Arts. We believe that the key to the huge success of our games project lies in the consistent combination of this careful interdisciplinary organization with the deployment of professional technology and working environment specifically crafted for an educational environment. We also conclude that a streamlined collaboration among students of related disciplines works as a very powerful catalyst in their personal and academic development.

@InProceedings { BBDH08c,
  author       = "Bidarra, Rafael and Boers, Jerke and Dobbe, Jeroen and Huijser, Remco",
  title        = "Bringing a pioneer games project to the next level",
  booktitle    = "Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Academic Days on Game Development in Computer Science Education",
  pages        = "11--15",
  month        = "feb",
  year         = "2008",
  publisher    = "ACM, NY",
  address      = "Miami, FL",
  url          = "http://graphics.tudelft.nl/Publications-new/2008/BBDH08c"
}