Games Development Course

chaotic dream

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could give me some information on the "Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Computing in Games Development" course in DkIT. it seeems really interesting and i'm considering applying for it after i do my Leaving, any info/opinions would be great!

Thanks in advance

Atomic Pineapple

i think merrick is doin that course or a version of it? merrick? your help is needed

Merrick

*comes running*

Just in case you hadn't looked, or if anyone else is interested, the official DKIT info is here:

http://ww2.dkit.ie/schools_and_departments/informatics_music_and_creative_media/computing_mathematics/dk820

And some other stuff that came up on BIE before is here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055037412
(didn't read through it again, but the some of it may be of some use...)

General overview - the course is pretty much like an IT course that specialises (spelling?) in games, in fact we shared all but one of our classes with the IT people in 1st year. This came as a bit of a shock to some of us when we started because it wasn't as heavily focused on games as we thought it would be, so bear in mind that you will be doing a great deal of techy stuff - maths too.
The non-computer-related part is based around game design ie art and graphics, as well as theory on desinging games, which is the fun part.

And yes, you will be playing games in class. Not just computer games either - we had Jenga and chess and all sorts of madness.

Anyhoo, hope that helps a little, if you want to ask anything more specific you can fire away here, or PM me. Cheerio

Atomic Pineapple

Merrick wrote:

*comes running*

Just in case you hadn't looked, or if anyone else is interested, the official DKIT info is here:

http://ww2.dkit.ie/schools_and_departments/informatics_music_and_creative_media/computing_mathematics/dk820

And some other stuff that came up on BIE before is here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055037412
(didn't read through it again, but the some of it may be of some use...)

General overview - the course is pretty much like an IT course that specialises (spelling?) in games, in fact we shared all but one of our classes with the IT people in 1st year. This came as a bit of a shock to some of us when we started because it wasn't as heavily focused on games as we thought it would be, so bear in mind that you will be doing a great deal of techy stuff - maths too.
The non-computer-related part is based around game design ie art and graphics, as well as theory on desinging games, which is the fun part.

And yes, you will be playing games in class. Not just computer games either - we had Jenga and chess and all sorts of madness.

Anyhoo, hope that helps a little, if you want to ask anything more specific you can fire away here, or PM me. Cheerio

feck sake i wanted to do that course but i only found out about it when i was in the college at another course, ggrrr, sounds like i'd really enjoy it

Merrick

draffodx wrote:

feck sake i wanted to do that course but i only found out about it when i was in the college at another course, ggrrr, sounds like i'd really enjoy it

Oh dear! Would you not be bothered trying to get into first year again? There's always the Trinity masters in games as well, I haven't looked into that much myself though. Not yet anyway.

chaotic dream

Thanks Merrick!
i had already seen the college site and that link to the other thread was really usefull.

one question though,

is there a lot of art involved? as in pencil and paper not on the pc. (it might soundlike a weird question but i spoke to some other people about a different course like this and they said that there no "physical" art involved.)

Merrick

Yep, we did both 'physical' and computer aided art. We've done life drawing and environments, and got to design characters and make them out of clay. The point of that was to take pictures for photoshoppage and make wee storyboards. That character design was in my first year, and in second we did the environments. The project for that was to create a world using drawings and photoshop, and then use macromedia director and quicktime to make a 'game' where you could look around and move between different areas in the quicktime movie, if you get me...
So it's a nice mix of both really, you're not just told to open photoshop and make something pretty, you learn how to draw it with pencils and paper and then scan it in.

chaotic dream

ok, cool.

the course seems really good, i'll head up on the open day in october an check it out aswell. Thanks for your help

Evd-Burner

lol what if ur really crap at art...

Splat75

Well, it's almost more important that you're good at programming. Especially once you get past second year

Evd-Burner

thats good cus i suck at art

AARRRGH

I would imagine you have to be very good at maths also...

Merrick

Just to clear things up, you don't have to be good at art, if you can draw something that looks passably like a human/room then you'll be grand.
You don't have to be a whizz at programming either, if you're very good at one or the other you'll pass as long as you work on the bit you're worse at.
Maths is like the honours course for leaving cert, so if you did that, you're flying.

K.O.Kiki

Man I wish I wasn't so lazy/sucky at programming...

Merrick

Laziness K, that's laziness :P

Thanks to the guy who asked the question in the first place and to Merrik. I was thinking of doin this course after the leaving cert but I wasn't certain.
Does anybody know if there are many jobs out there after college? I'd imagine most games companies would be looking for experience and I wonder if programming places (non-games related ones) would see 'Games development' and think that we couldn't program anything else...

That_Guy

I'm studying Creative Multimedia at the moment and a few people in my course left the games development course because they said "it's a lot of hard work and not as fun as the name suggests". Sorry to be negative but it's what they said but everybody adapts differently. Good luck anyway.

Merrick

Ha, I think those guys came from my class! They're right though, it's more work than play
And @ conor, I've heard it said that if you can program a game, you can program anything! And most of what we learn is standard programming stuff with extra games related stuff stuck on the side, so no need to worry aobut that.
Re: jobs, there are a few, but not many available in Ireland, localisation and things like that are done here. To be realistic about making big life changing games, you'd need to be setting your sights worldwide tbh.

Atomic Pineapple

Merrick wrote:

To be realistic about making big life changing games, you'd need to be setting your sights worldwide tbh.

or if your ambitous enough set up your own company here and make millions

Merrick

I like your thinking!!
Now who will join me in taking over the gaming world!?

That_Guy

Merrick wrote:

I like your thinking!!
Now who will join me in taking over the gaming world!?

Sure, why not. I'm free every Wednesday

K.O.Kiki

Microsoft are out here in Sandyford, a stone's throw from my (localisation) office -- I'm sure they & Intel/Havok can always use a few programmers.

On a related note, set up a gaming society -- tell the 2nd & 3rd years I sent ya

That_Guy

There was a load of people playing Halo 3 near the Whitaker. That was pretty cool

K.O.Kiki

OH NOEZ TEH HALOZ!!!1

Guess it's that time of year again...

Merrick

Yup, yesterday was a great day in the xbox world...
The people playing halo were the shiny new games society, anyone sign up?

chaotic dream

yay halo! *cough*

juat want to ask if the open day is definitly on the 19th?
im heading up and want to confirm the date:D

smemon

yip, it's the 19th..

we all (students) get off for the day

Merrick

... Friday off!?
*jumps for joy*

That_Guy

Party on Thursday night anyone?

Atomic Pineapple

That_Guy wrote: »

Party on Thursday night anyone?

i plan to be in the bar most of thursday as long as a test or something isn't on