Digital Science Academy

Game Engine Development Course

Each cohort attends weekly live classes with an instructor at our location in Fort Worth, Texas. You will learn to be a self-sufficient developer and master the building blocks of software engineering, graphics and sound production.

Each student starts with a thorough course of instruction in the C++ programming language. Along the way we teach software engineering principles. As we progress through the program the students will write several smaller games. This familiarizes them with the overall process.

After a few weeks, students start working on their capstone course. Each student designs and builds a complete game from scratch. The subsystems of the game form a solid foundation to build on. Toward the end of the program students will form the final product to fit the personality and interests of the creator.

Faculty work as team leads and software architects, providing you guidance, direction, instruction and leadership to your cohort. They will ensure the quality of your work is up to professional standards. Moreover, they provide personalized help at strengthening your weaknesses. This will help ensure your success in the program.

The complete outline of the course is located in the Catalog.

Tools Used in Our Program

	C++ is the programming language most modern games are build in. It's object-oriented and allows for low-level access to the machine's hardware. The language is very efficient and flexible which are requirements for game programming. This is the language used by all professional game development companies. Same language used by Unity, Unreal, ID Tech and most others.
	Microsoft's Visual Studio integrated development environment tool is used to create computer programs. It includes a source code editor, debugger, profiler and many other tools. It is the standard development tool used for game development. Our program uses the free Community version of the tool which has the same features be is licensed to use free for educational purposes.
	Open Graphics Library (OpenGL) is extensively used in the game and interactive graphics industry. It's available on any platform including Windows, Andriod, IOS, Linux, and many more.
	Blender is an open-source 3D computer modeling tool for creating game content. This full-featured tool includes tools for 3D modeling, texturing, sculpting, rendering and compositing. Models from this program are exported into files that our game engine will read.
	Lua is a lightweight programming language designed to be embedded into programs. This tool allows us to make fast changes to how the game engine interacts with the player. Lua is the most popular scripting language found in modern games today.
	GLM is the math engine behind our computer graphics. It provides a simple interface to manipulate 3D models and makes OpenGL easier to use. This library is very mature an very well documented.
	Git is a very popular distributed version-control application used for tracking changes in source code. This application has revolutionized how developers work and provides many powerful features. This tool helps make development easier by allowing students to make changes to code while faculty can review the changes to ensure your game engine is bug-free and serves it's intended purpose.

Subject Areas Covered

During the course of the year; each of these facets of development will be covered.

C++ Programming
User Input and Control
Game Engine Architecture
Memory Management
Parallel Processing
User Interfaces
Multiplayer Networked Systems
Data Storage and Retrieval
Unit Testing and Quality Control
Software Engineering and Design

Game Design Documentation and Planning
Artificial Intelligence
Graphics Programming with OpenGL in 2D and 3D
Procedural Geometry Development
Writing For Games
Distribution Platforms (Steam, Humble Bundle)
Sound Generation and Editing

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