The Experimental Games Minor provides students an opportunity to explore techniques and technologies used in game creation to supplement their major.
Required Courses - These are the core courses that every student takes.
Studio Electives - Throughout your studies, you can choose from several studio electives that give you hands-on creative time.
Humanities and Sciences Electives - These classes round out your experience at MCAD, deepen your creative practice, and fulfill non-studio requirements for a degree.
Learning Outcomes
This course introduces students to the core concepts of experimental game design, theory, and prototyping. The course focuses on (non-digital) game design and creation through fast-paced game prototyping. Topics covered include: rule design, level design, game balance, game-specific writing, narrative development, and aesthetic concerns. Students will engage in critical play– playing games and analyzing their characteristics. This course supports students who would like to develop game concepts to later be expanded within the Experimental Games Minor as well as in other disciplines such as Art+Technology, Animation, Illustration, Filmmaking, Product Design, and Graphic Design.
This studio course serves as a fundamental creative coding experience. Students go from little to no experience with coding to proficient, expressive, software creators. Students are exposed to the creative approach of recognizing programming and computational experimentation as an art and design medium while exploring a range of practical programming skills and concepts.
Topics covered include foundational coding structures, generative algorithms, random events, interactive states, basic physics, and the systematic combination of media. The class begins with a series of short technical exercises focused on fundamental principles before opening up to larger more expressive projects.
This class is concerned with virtual worlds developed entirely within the digital realm. Students learn how to write and develop ideas for nonlinear narratives and characters as well as how to build and/or modify fully functional virtual environments for single and multiple users. Issues covered include interface design, interaction, character design, animation, nonlinear structure, rules, and algorithms. Additionally, the class offers a thorough survey and study of programming concepts related to the development of games and simulated environments.
This class provides students with an opportunity to further refine their creative, technical, and programmatic skills while working on larger-scale, sophisticated projects. Students engage in studies of theoretical, critical, and cultural concepts relevant to the design, development, implementation, and impact of games in contemporary society. Students are encouraged to investigate and identify their career plans and recognize their potential role in the context of the gaming industry. Specific career models and skill sets are discussed in relation to specialized aspects of game design and development.
This course provides students with an overview of graphic design practice. Students concentrate on building visual and typographic communication skills as well as the vocabulary necessary for critical analysis. These introductory level skills are explored through static, static-narrative, interactive, and time-based media. Topics covered include basic visual and typographic principles, composition, type and image integration, sequence, and craft. Students are also introduced to the design process, which includes research, ideation, iteration, refinement, and implementation. Image/image-series, logotypes, mark-making, digital presentations, and booklets are possible outcomes of this course.
Designed to acquaint students technically and conceptually with the medium of sound, this course provides a basic working vocabulary for understanding, discussing, and producing sounds. Topics covered include basic perceptual concepts and fundamentals of composing sound such as pitch, rhythm, duration, and volume. Students complete a series of assigned projects designed to demonstrate and assess competencies with microphones, studio recording, and digital editing, mixing, and processing.
3D modelers are capable of fashioning characters, objects, and locations out of thin air – but how do they make their creations functional and compelling? In this course, students will explore essential modeling tools and techniques, craft organic and hard-surface assets, and learn how to organize the underlying structures so models are ready for rigging, animation, look development, and lighting. Skills and concepts are applicable to film and television entertainment, video games, advertising, commerce, education, pop art, and more.
How do 3D animators breathe life into their creations? In this course, students learn how Disney’s indispensable 12 Principles translate into 3D, expand on these concepts, and explore sensible approaches to creating appealing performances. Starting with simple exercises and gradually building to more fully-developed scenes, students gain the ability to harness the creative opportunities of 3D animation.
A newly completed 3D model is a dimensional canvas waiting to be fully realized, its uniform gray giving way to the artist's choice of wood, metal, paint, rust, freckles, or scars. Once these surface qualities are applied, evocative light and shadow can further pull the viewer into the scene, stirring emotions, and enhancing the narrative. Learn how to prepare and then transform models into CGI works of art by exploring concepts from character design, production design, photography, cinematography, painting, optics, and other disciplines.
This course investigates the aesthetic issues at the heart of writing as an art in itself. Course topics illuminate the kind of thinking that guides and inspires and require students to develop presentations and to explore creatively. Students engage in deep investigations into the nature of communication and inquiries about the role of language. The class may include trips to and possibly participation in local events to enhance the classroom experience and students’ understanding of the creative writing process. This course fulfills the Creative and Professional Writing requirement for Humanities and Sciences.
Storytelling is humankind's oldest art form, and in many ways we define and know ourselves best by the creation of a series of events that almost magically transform themselves into plot, characters, and themes. How we invent and tell a story is how we see the world. Narrative and Storytelling develops students’ appreciation for plot, story arc, and character development, and familiarizes students with the various techniques of sequential narrative, non-sequential narrative, and experimental narrative. This course fulfills the Creative and Professional Writing requirement for Humanities and Sciences.