Game Development
Major and Minor
If you aspire to craft immersive games and interactive experiences, the BS in Game Development is the ideal program for your career ambitions. This curriculum seamlessly integrates skills and methodologies from computer science, art, design, and storytelling, empowering you to evolve into a well-rounded game developer equipped with a coveted skill set that is in high demand.
Game Courses at Pace
This is a list of the current game development courses available at Pace University. These are all project-based courses where you make games all semester. We're always adding new courses and electives too!
CIS 151
Game Development for Everyone
In this course, students will learn programming and interactivity through the lens of Game Development. No prior experience is needed. Students will gain familiarity with a game engine and learn about topics such as sprites, models, collisions, physics, lighting, and audio. Additionally, students will create their own behaviors through scripting. This is a project-based course with students building playable games throughout the semester.
CS 255
Game Development Patterns and Algorithms
Behind great games are great algorithms! Students will learn how to implement various game programming patterns such as singleton, observer, and object pooling. Algorithms and structures for games including pathfinding, Finite State Machines and steering behaviors will also be covered. Students will learn techniques for creating systems within games. This course also introduces procedural generation of virtual environments.
CS 256
Game Design and Prototyping
This course introduces game design topics such as the 3Cs (character, controls, camera), game mechanics, level design, difficulty, systems, and storytelling/narrative elements. Students will develop weekly rapid prototypes focusing on an aspect of game design and work as a team on a final project. Additionally, students will learn about conceptualizing ideas, the iterative design process and playtesting.
CS 355
Advanced Topics in Game Development
This course is for students to take game development to the next level. Topics include procedural generation, advanced AI, NPCs and virtual inhabitants, network multiplayer, adaptive audio, utilizing cloud services, debugging, and optimization. This is a project-based course with students building playable games throughout the semester.
CS 356
Mobile Game Development and Publishing
Mobile gaming is a larger industry than desktop and console gaming combined! In this course, students will work on a team to create and publish a mobile game to an app store. Topics include mobile game design considerations, building and deploying for mobile devices, touch controls, using sensor data, app store publishing, monetization and utilizing app store services for features such as achievements and leaderboards.
CS 357
Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Realtiy (VR), and the Metaverse
This course is an introduction to Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and social virtual worlds. Course topics include building for mobile and various VR devices, AR Interfaces and Interactions, Locomotion, Teleportation and Roomscale (6 degrees of freedom), interactions in 3D environments., gesture recognition, and integrating with existing Metaverse APIs.
CS 455
Game Engine Architecture
Modern games and interactive simulations are built on game engines. Students will create their own basic game engine and games that utilize their engine. Topics include game engine architecture, coordinate systems, vectors, matrices, transformations, real-time rendering, input processing, audio, collision detection and basic physics for games.
CS 456
Game Development Capstone
Students will work in teams as a “game studio” throughout the semester to create a fully realized game. Each team will write a game design document and present weekly progress in class as well as on a team blog. Course topics include production practices, project management, code repository, and other collaboration tools.
