Uni courses good for games industry

#1 Herby,

Without a doubt - go for the BSc in computer science. Hands down - no questions asked. I know how it is in your situation - it is hard to see all the reasons people give you different advice and even if you do, sometimes you don't take it. But, if I were you, knowing what I know now, I would get a Computer Science degree at the best school you can go to.

A few reasons for this - 1) you have to consider that you may not be good enough (or even enjoy it enough) to make it in the games industry and so having IT skills in this economy will mean a good paying job. 2) a traditional computer science major takes courses in physics, graphics, algorithms, design, etc. etc. that are necessary for you to be one of the best game developers out there. 3) CodeMasters, Midway, Acclaim and the top developement houses recruit people with CS Degrees from the best schools they can find and much less so from the game dev schools.

Good Luck with school... Joe

#2 Got to 100% agree with Joseph on this.

A Degree in Software Engineering or Computer Science is the way to go. This will set you up with a solid foundation of how software and computers work. From there you can go on to program anything from an application, level editors, to full blown games or game engines.

My old university recently asked for my comments on a games course they were going to run. Upon my advice they have since turned the degree into a software engineering for interactive media course. As with my old universitys initial course structure, it seems many of these games courses leave out the basics of software engineering and as such are next to useless in the real world.

#3 Get yourself to the University of Bolton, youll find what your looking for. www.bolton.ac.uk

#4 Thanks, I have looked at Bolton with many other universities. Ill get back to my research on the computer science Bsc and look for the best ones i can get into.

Thanks for the help

Herby

#5 If you are still in the research stage, I would consider the DigiPen Institute of Technology (www.digipen.edu). The Computer Science and Computer Engineering degree programs are completely geared to getting you employed in the games industry. The school has a Game department staffed with industry veterans, some of which have been making games for 10 years or longer as designers, producers, and programmers. In the Engineering program projects include creating a handheld gaming device of your own and of course writing a game for it. And as has already been intimated in other posts here, a CS/CE degree still leaves you in a good position to get non-gaming related employment if your ultimate dreams don't work out. The school is accredited and financial aid is available.

#6 Check out the University of Advancing Technology.

http://uat.edu/

#7 Comp Sci with a physics Minor for sure :)

#8 How useful would a physics minor really be for game development? I am a Computer Science major and i had originally considered a physics minor for its uses in game development, but after taking the required mechanics course, I wondered what else you would need to know for game simulation. It seems to me that a basic knowledge of mechanics such as forces, torque, momentum, etc. is all that is really put into most game simulations, and that any complexity results from the software implementation, not the physical laws itself. I dont really see what advantage taking additional physics courses to get a minor would give me for game development, unless I really wanted to make a game about the sub-atomic structure of the atom :)
Just wondering what other people think about that.

#9 Well, I have a really good understanding of physical laws which make it 100 times easier to debug my physics equations and such... There is a lot of physics that you can implement if you know about it which causes neat effects... Problem is, noone knows about it...

Thermodynamics and waves helped a lot... But so did Quantum Mechanics in helping to understand force interactivity.

Momentum, impulse and rotational velocties and accelerations can all be implemented if you know how to deal with forces.

How do you simulate multiple kinds of forces interacting on an object simulatenously if you don't understand how those forces would interact and behave in the real world ?

Alternatively, minoring in Math (if you can) is also a good idea... But not as good as physics.

Take as much physics for the life sciences as you can (as opposed to enginneering focused)... They are more relevent to what you will need.

To more directly answer your question... advanced fluid dynamics :)

#10 Also note that if you major in Computer Engineering that you can pick up and get a Computer Science masters too much work after the Engineering masters. And I'd say that physics is essential... a good thing to know as much of as possible. For the developer, it is probably also a good idea to have a bit of a business background as well. Do note that I'm not speaking from experience though and I'm still sort of speculating as to what would be good for this :M