16 courses with the subject GAME, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
COMM 190 (GAME 140) Gaming and Interactive Media (3) The course is an introduction to the digital interactive media industries for students who may consider seeking employment in that sector, which includes
This course is a comparative introduction to the nature and history of video games as cultural artifacts, from Pong to online role-playing. It introduces students to academic discussion on and creative work in new digital forms including hypertexts, video games, cell phone novels, machinima, and more. Students will survey major debates over the meaning and value of video games, and study some of the major theoretical terms and perspectives developed to elaborate the cultural and sociological value of video games. The course extends students' skills in literary interpretation to a variety of new objects, and makes them aware of the role medium plays in aesthetic development and production. Students will leave with a far sharper understanding of how the interpretive tools used in the humanities can be extended to include new media, and with a sense of the historical role video games have played and will continue to play in global cultural production. Because the course is historically focused, it will spend significant time looking at Undergraduate - The Pennsylvania State University 2026-2027 4195 the differential development of video games in three major regions: the United States, Europe, and East Asia (especially Japan). Cross-listed with: CMLIT 191N Bachelor of Arts: Arts Bachelor of Arts: Humanities United States Cultures (US) General Education: Arts (GA) General Education: Humanities (GH) General Education - Integrative: Interdomain GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Integrative Thinking
GAME 180N is a multidisciplinary course which introduces students to the theories, concepts, and technologies behind virtual worlds. This course will focus on the myriad ways that narrative arts and physical sciences relate to the development of technologically mediated virtual worlds. Designing the physical and narrative voyages of avatars through virtual worlds is necessarily a team-centered undertaking requiring recursive editing from a macroscopic and microscopic point of view to refocus project goals and deliverables. Besides learning the requisite computing and technical skills involved in virtual world development, students enrolled in this course will produce a world design proposal, and storyboards, interactive fiction graphics, or world maps for their virtual world; in this way, they will explore some of the ways that creative writing, particularly interactive fiction and storytelling techniques drawn from non-VR and VR gaming contribute to the planning, design, and execution of virtual worlds. Students will also learn about the basic science behind virtual world concepts such as the physical environment, physical processes (e.g. kinematics, motion), and light; ultimately, they will produce an immersive time-space experience in their proposed world and reflect on the complexity of integrating design elements in a way that creates a satisfying immersive experience. The objectives of the course include: (1) students will work in teams to design a proposed virtual world using world making principles found in interactive fiction narratology and physical principles that embody the avatar and allow it to move in a virtual world environment; (2) students will work in teams to construct a virtual scene, movement in time/space, from that world using computer software tools and mediated through virtual reality hardware; (3) students will be able to discuss developing immersive technology and applications of virtual worlds in business, society, and academia; (4) students will analyze and critique the virtual world designs of other student teams; (5) students will demonstrate comprehension of interactive fiction scene and level structures and world maps as they relate to designing the voyage of the avatar in a virtual world; and (6) students will demonstrate comprehension of physical principles (e.g. kinematics, light) as they apply to virtual worlds. In addition to directed readings, discussions, and quizzes in computing, narrative arts, and physics (related to concepts inherent in virtual worlds), the course will incorporate hands-on lab exercises and online discussions. A semester- long team project will be the primary means of student evaluation. During this semester-long team project students will design and create their own virtual environment(s) and character(s) using software tools and accepted world design principles. Students will apply a variety of computing concepts in the world creation, including some combination of programming, 360-degree video, and digital imagery. The course will culminate in the oral and visual presentation of their creative and technological works. The semester-long team project will be heavily
Design of games as aesthetic objects and cultural artifacts that people find meaningful and entertaining. In his 2007 book Persuasive Games, Professor Ian Bogost writes about the power of digital games in social, political, artistic, and psychological meaning-making through what he calls 'procedural rhetoric'. 'Procedural rhetoric entails persuasion - to change opinion or action - to convey ideas effectively.' Procedural rhetoric is a subdomain of procedural authorship; it's arguments are made not through the construction of worlds or images, but through the authorship of rules and behavior, the construction of dynamic models.' (Bogost 2007, 29). As games become cultural objects with artistic value, achieving orchestral performances in the opera houses of the world, permanent exhibits in the Smithsonian, and having numerous charitable organizations entirely devoted to the appreciation of games, their art, and their rhetoric it behooves educators to enable the next generation of students to become literate in this new and emerging form of expression. This course will provide students with an introduction to game design. It will focus on the design of games as aesthetic objects, both inasmuch as video games have significant aesthetic properties (lighting, narrative, animation, sound design) but also, more generally, inasmuch as games are cultural artifacts that people find meaningful and entertaining. Because GAME 220 takes this broad perspective, students will learn design principles that are used not only in video game design but in traditional "pen-and-paper" games, such as board games, card games, role playing games, and so forth. The course will teach students how to design artful, creative games in general. General Education: Arts (GA) GenEd Learning Objective: Creative Thinking GenEd Learning Objective: Crit and Analytical Think GenEd Learning Objective: Key Literacies
3 GAME 251 2D Game Programming 3
Introduction to programming 2D Games with HTML5 and Javascript.
Develop the habits of successful game designers - playing games thoughtfully, and documenting those thoughts. GAME 420 Advanced Game Design (3) Topics covered in this class will include independent game development, marketing, scheduling, and analysis of contemporary games for design choices in something called a "post-mortem." This is done with the intent of training students in the habits of successful game designers- namely, playing games thoughtfully, and then documenting those thoughts. The successful student will have a clear and thoughtful record of at least 15 games he or she has played and analyzed with a critical eye by the end of the semester. These should be peppered with thoughtful critique on the games industry, and musings on trends in game design. This will of course become clear as the course progresses. The culmination of this course will result in the creation of a professiona competent game designer portfolio and blog that can be used in search for a job, to represent oneself as an independent game developer, and to showcase the talents and skills developed over this course and its prerequisite.
In Modeling and Simulation, students will develop an understanding of the systems, processes, tools, and implications of this field. Cross-listed with: DIGIT 430
Upper level course examining the core psychological principles as they apply to the topic of games. GAME 434 / PSYCH 434 Psychology of Gaming (3) This course looks at how the field of psychology can be applied to understand and improve the world of games. This requires the application of theories and research based in experimental, cognitive and several other disciplines within psychology, including but not limited to cognitive, social, motivation & emotion, and experimental psychology. By applying different theories within these disciplines we can start to understand how humans interact with games and in turn how games have evolved as a result. This course addresses an active research area in psychology, of broad interest to students in Psychology and other disciplines. The course will fulfill a 400-level requirement for students in the PSYCH majors and minors as well as those in the GAME minor. Students typically will be evaluated by exams, research project, in-class activities, homework, and article discussions. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: PSYCH 100 Cross-listed with: PSYCH 434
Autonomously generating object behavior and content in games.
This course will explore the unique challenges and creative opportunities associated with composing music assets for video games. We will work with an industry standard digital audio workstation and game audio middleware to compose and produce interactive music for a variety of video game scenarios. Coursework will consist of reading assignments, game music analyses, music composition assignments, presentations, peer comments, and a collaborative final project. Enforced Prerequisite at Enrollment: INART 258A Cross-listed with: INART 459
A comparative look at the nature and history of video games as cultural artifacts, from Pond to online role-playing. This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. The video game industry is larger than the film industry, and yet the academic study of video games has only just begun. This course is a comparative introduction to the nature and history of video games as cultural artifacts, from Pong to online role- playing. It introduces students to academic discussion on and creative work in new digital forms including hypertexts, video games, cell phone novels, machinima, and more. Studentswill learn basic narrative theory, and study its impact on game studies and game production. They will survey major debates over the meaning and value of video games, and review its history from Pong to contemporary games, including online world-based games. The course extends students' skills in literary interpretation to a variety of new objects, and makes them aware of the
A team of students manages the production of a game from concept to implementation. GAME 480 Game Development Project (3) In this course students take the entire semester to creating a game that will be published. Students are assembled into teams and will be expected to create a game from conception to publication in a very short period of time. What will result from the completion of this course is a demonstration of the knowledge accumulated in previous GAME courses and in important components of your portfolio to enable you to obtain a job in the industry.
/Maximum of 12 Supervised student activities on research-based projects on an individual or small-group basis.
/Maximum of 999 Supervised off-campus, non-group instruction including field experiences, practicums, or internships. Written and oral critique of activity required. assignment by instructor
/Maximum of 12 Creative projects, including research and design, which are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.
Source: Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Erie-Behrend College's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 59
