Through the Game Design & Development BDP, students will learn about and create video game experiences, integrating skills and approaches from art, design, programming, and media studies, among other disciplines. A vast, interdisciplinary field that reaches well beyond the entertainment industry, video games have applications in medicine, architecture, geology, and much more. Whatever applications they envision, students will learn about the art and design of games, the underlying programming, and how games are part of a social context. In the process, students will build their capacity for developing a creative vision, strong technical skills, critical reasoning, and problem-solving.
For a complete list of courses and requirements, view the Game Design & Development BDP curriculum sheet.
Requirements
With 22 credit hours of coursework and Connecting Experiences, students may earn a BDP certificate in Game Design & Development.
Courses counting toward a BDP in Game Design and Development may also satisfy core, major, and elective requirements in a student’s degree plan. With planning, the BDP should not add time to students’ UT careers but instead helps students choose the courses they already have to take in an integrated way.
Foundation Courses [7-10 hours]
Forum Seminar
Concepts and Techniques
Programming Foundations
Games in Social Contexts
Courses in a Strand [6-12 hours]
Students should work with their BDP advisor to choose strand courses that will focus the BDP on specific interests, and that will provide an interdisciplinary perspective. In order to create an interdisciplinary experience, students must choose courses from a variety of disciplines.
Connecting Experiences [3-6 hours]
- Required Independent or Team-Based Creative Project
Integration Essay
Students write a 3-4 page essay written at the end of the BDP experience, drawing together the different pieces of the BDP.
Faculty Panel
An interdisciplinary faculty panel for Game Design & Development guides students in choosing courses and identifying research, creative project, and internship experiences that allow them to connect the concepts in their coursework to real world experiences.