Game Design and Development (GDD), BI™

The Bachelor of Innovation™ in Game Design and Development (GDD) is a new degree within the Bachelor of Innovation family. It is a rigorous technical curriculum based heavily on computer science topics with important cross-disciplinary breadth in art and music. The program as a whole will let students build the foundational knowledge and develop the skills necessary to form their own indpendent game development companies or to pursue employment in the games industry. In addition to traditional games for entertainment, the game industry includes Serious Games (games designed for simulation and training, educational games, games for health care, and so on) and Casual Games (small, short games played in a Web browser or on a cell phone, for example).

The Bachelor of Innovation family requires an innovation core, a cross-discipline core, and a set of general education courses in addition to the rigorous technical degree. The combination of the GDD-specific course work and the core Bachelor of Innovation™ topics and experiences will position students form a new small company to develop entertainment and serious games; pursue a career at a traditional entertainment game development company; join a company that develops or utilizes Serious Games; or use the critical thinking, design, and teaming skills developed throughout the curriculum to pursue employment outside the games industry.

Learning Outcomes

Understand and apply game design principles
Apply game design principles in various domains
Understand and apply programming principles
Apply advanced programming techniques
Develop complete video games
Understand core business fundamentals
Work effectively in creative team environments
Understand game-specific business issues

Degree Requirements

The Bachelor of Innovation in Game Design and Development degree requires the following:

completion of at least 120 credit hours
a minimum 2.0 grade point average in all computer science courses, GDD courses, and courses taken at the University of Colorado.

Course Requirements

The courses for the degree are as follows:

Innovation Core (27 semester hours)
Cross-discipline Core (21 semester hours)
Creative Communication Core, Business Core, or Globalization Core

(Note: GDD students who select the Business Core or Globalization Core are required to take one Visual Arts and one Music course as free electives.)

Mathematics (7 Semester Hours)

Science (10 Semester Hours)

PES 1110 - General Physics I - Calculus Based
PES 1160 - Advanced Physics Lab I
Remaining 5 credit hours selected from the classes below:

Biology, Chemistry, Geography and Environmental Studies, Geology, and Physics & Energy Science.

English (3 Semester Hours)

ENGL 1310 - Rhetoric and Writing I: Academic Reading and Analytical Writing

GDD Core (30 Semester Hours)

GDD Concentration Requirements (15 Semester Hours)

Students select 15 hours of concentration courses in any 3000- or 4000-level CS or GDD course not used to meet other GDD degree requirements.

Free Electives (13 Semester Hours)

Students select 13 hours of free elective courses from all the courses offered at UCCS.

The Bachelor of Innovation students are required to participate in research/innovation projects. Most of these will be industry-sponsored projects. Students employed full-time who wish to pursue a degree in this program will be required to sign IP agreements and have such agreements executed by their employer, or arrange for their employer to be one of the industry-sponsored projects.

Sample Schedule

Please see http://innovation.uccs.edu/BI-details.html for a sample schedule.