1 Pathways for students

These pathways are not exclusive to each other.

• Workforce development
  • Upon completion of these programs, a student:
    • is employable by a game development team
    • can start a game development company
• Transfer
  • Upon completion of these programs, a student:
    • can transfer units and courses to a 4-year university with a game development specialization

2 Course dependency

The following is the core computer science courses leading to CISP430 (data structures). It is until CISP400 is taken that a student possesses sufficient programming skills to start with the Unreal engine.

CISG300 is the first actual game programming class. If the Unreal engine is used in this class, then the following dependency graph represents the core of any game development programs. CISG300 may have the following SLOs:

• a student completion CISG300:
  • can effectively navigate in a game development interactive development environment (IDE)
  • create menu-drive user interfaces
  • incorporate existing assets (such as 2D artwork, 3D models, music, and 360-photographs) into a game
  • develop code to handle object collisions
  • structure a game to effectively reuse components and code
  • synthesize a simple game

CISP302 is a general introduction to programming. However, it differs from CISP300 in the sense that CISP302 uses a specific scripting language. This provides the flexibility of using GDScript or Python for CISP300. This allows the dependency to be modified as follows:

In this new configuration, CISG310 is a class that specifically uses the Unreal engine for game development. In this framework, CISG300 introduces general game programming concepts and structures using GoDot, while CISG310 focuses on the use of the Unreal engine.

For transfer purposes, MATH400 and MATH401 are both transferable to UCSC. Compared to the computer science transfer degree, only one of CISP440 or CISP310 is needed, this leaves a 4-unit course (possibly CISG300) as the game development course before transfer. There is no (unit) room for CISG400.

For a non-transfer certificate intended for people who intend to work as a game developer (especially those intending to start their own business), MATH400 and MATH401 can both be removed.