The TI:DeDA Programme

Over the last few weeks I've looked into the objectives and learning outcomes of degree and masters courses within the UK currently available to anyone wishing to get into the games industry. And I have also been trying to generate a suitable name for the programme.

The Programme Title

From looking at these course outlines and a few requirements of my own I have come up with a first draft of the objectives and learning outcomes for my new course, which will be called the Take Initiative: Design Degree Alternative (DeDA) .

I decided to focus on a course that consisted of subjects taught on degree courses so that it will cover the basics of game and level design for beginners. As I am not qualified to teach a professional course most of the information I distribute will be from secondary sources, my own experiences with design and whatever I learn along this process. I intend to create a plan to produce each project that will be used in the portfolio, but will break each section of the development process down so that the participant has a chance to analyse that stage of the process in greater detail.

Objective and Learning Outcomes

After researching the objectives and learning outcomes of the current Degree and Masters courses within the UK I have created a shortlist of the objectives that I want DeDA to achieve and the learning outcomes that I want the participants of the DeDA to gain.

Objectives

• Keep the cost of books, tool, software and trips i.e to conferences and/or IDGA meetings under the cost of professional/official courses at this time. Currently, this is about


• Provide information and teach participants how to use current development tools e.g. UDK/UT3, Unity or Hammer to produce high standard game projects.


• Be level design and game design focused


• To be a suitable time scale to learn all the content outlined in the course and produce a portfolio to fit around a schedule i.e. a QA role


• To produce a portfolio of work that will (hopefully) consist of 2 large projects that demonstrate knowledge of current tools

Learning Outcomes

• A comprehensive understanding of the study of games and techniques used to create them


• To be able to make critical analysis of certain areas of games after playing them and to be able to talk confidently about them


• Learn to design and develop game projects from concept to release using the latest development tools


• Be able to make contributions to the development of innovative games, methods, concept, genres or mechanics.

These still need to be looked over and refined but they seem pretty solid for me at the moment.