CSCI 107
Creating Games Spring 2017
Division III Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
Cross-listed ARTS 107
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

The game is unique as the only broadly-successful interactive art form. Games communicate the experience of embodying a role by manipulating the player’s own decisions, abstraction, and discrete planning. Those three elements are the essence of computation, which makes computer science theory integral to game design. Video games also co-opt programming and computer graphics as new tools for the modern artist. As a result, games are collaborative interdisciplinary constructs that use computation as a medium for creative expression. Students analyze and extend contemporary video and board games using the methodology of science and the language of the arts. They explore how computational concepts like recursion, state, and complexity apply to interactive experiences. They then synthesize new game elements using mathematics, programming and both digital and traditional art tools. Emphasis is on the theory of design in modern European board games. Topics covered include experiment design, gameplay balance, minimax, color theory, pathfinding, game theory, composition, and computability.
The Class: Format: lecture and studio
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3564
Grading: no pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: evaluation will be based on participation, studio work, and quizzes
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis
Prerequisites: none; no programming or game experience is assumed
Enrollment Preferences: first-year students
Unit Notes: not open to students who completed a Computer Science course numbered 136 or above; does not count toward the Art Major
Materials/Lab Fee: lab fee of $25 will be added to the student's term bill
Distributions: Division III Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
Notes: meets Division 3 requirement if registration is under CSCI; meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ARTS
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
CSCI 107 Division III ARTS 107 Division I
Attributes: FMST Core Courses

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