Teaching Game Development To Fine Arts Students? 172
jkavalier writes "I've been asked to prepare a short course (50 hours) of video game development to Fine Arts students. That means people with little-to-no technical skills, and hopefully, highly creative individuals. By the end of it, I would like to have finished 1-3 very basic minigames. I'm considering Unity 3D, Processing, and even Scratch. How would you approach teaching such a course? What do you think is the best tool/engine/environment for such a task?"
Unreal or Steam (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I would approach teaching that course... (Score:4, Informative)
There are other aspects to game development than just programming, you know. Think BioWare would be anywhere if they don't have top notch writers? What about the graphic artists, 3D modelers, texture artists, and level designers that are indispensable in any game studio?
Blender (Score:5, Informative)
The Blender Game Engine is actually quite suitable for an introductory game design course, and it has two completely free books written for learning it, plus a huge number of example games and scripts. Almost all of the logic can be scripted with 'logic bricks' (a minor amount of simple python scripts are needed for some typical behaviours).
http://download.blender.org/documentation/gamekit2/ [blender.org]
http://download.blender.org/documentation/gamekit1/ [blender.org]
Also see Yo Frankie - which shows what a team can accomplish in a short time
http://www.yofrankie.org/ [yofrankie.org]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7RRaEvWqJc [youtube.com]
Blender itself is now quite easy to create game assets in, and works well as a level editor.
The Game Engine is not exactly cutting edge, but then cutting edge isn't of much benefit for learning game design.
Re:How about "Alice"? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I would approach teaching that course... (Score:4, Informative)