Have you always dreamed of developing your own game? Did you ever wonder how the game you played was built? Or are you intrigued with items like concept art and storytelling? In this minor, you will be part of a (bigger) multidisciplinary team developing your own game. You will gain experience in collaborating with people from different disciplines and are encouraged to enrich your way of thinking in the game development domain. 

You are free (within certain constraints) to come up with a proposal and a so-called game design document (GGD) for a game. This proposal will be assessed on complexity and feasibility. Your project team consists of members from different disciplines that will spend the 20 weeks working together to create the best game possible. It is important that everybody has the possibility to develop themselves! At the end of the project, we host a big expo for the game industry and students to celebrate the created games. 

For the development of your game the Unity game engine is used. In the 3D & Animation class Blender will be used. For other classes and goals you are free to pick whatever software you’d like to use.

During the development of the game you will be rewarded with individual achievements by accomplishing milestones (continuous assessment of knowledge and skills). These achievements are linked to the classes you pick at the start.

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In this minor, you will work in a group consisting of eight students, which requires some group management skills. Additionally, every student chooses classes to focus on a specific role(s) they will fulfill within the group. It is mandatory to attend at least four different classes, but all classes are scheduled in a way you could attend all of them. 

Below you’ll find the different roles and some examples of their responsibilities. 

Game Producer 

Responsible for managing the group, organizing the EXPO, possible product owner. 

Game Designer 

Design the experience the game tries to achieve for its players through its core mechanics. Main contributor to the Game Design Document (GDD). 

Level Designer 

Create beautiful levels, tell a story in each level and invent puzzles. 

Sound Designer 

Make the game feel alive and keep your players' heads banging by designing sound effects and background music. 

Storyteller 

Use the game to engage the player in an intriguing story. 

Concept Artist 

Convey your ideas for use in video games before it is put into the final product. Combine traditional techniques with modern day technology and learn about different stages in the design stadium like sketching, inking and rendering.  

Game Programmer 

Code the game mechanics and the main gameplay loop, communicate with the engine code, unit test mechanics. 

Artificial Intelligence Programmer 

Code the A.I. your players battle against without making the game an impossible challenge. 

Graphics Programmer 

Optimize code to achieve high frame rates and create custom tools, rewrite some core engine mechanics, make the game look good with custom shaders and effects. 

3D modelling 

Create 3D models using meshes and textures and everything in between.

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The minor Game Development is suitable for students from different disciplines that have an interest in learning how to develop games. They like to work together with students from other disciplines on the development of their game. 

While playing games, did you always wonder how the game worked? How they were built? We offer you a cool project in which you build your own game as part of a group of students. But… we do ask an enormous amount of effort (also in time) in return. 

This minor could interest students from different programs within The Hague University of Applied Sciences. By offering you to apply for different roles (profiles) the course is especially suitable for HBO-ICT and CMD.  Students of other programs can join as well but may be limited to the role they can choose (see admission requirements). 

Depending on the chosen profile, this minor offers a combination of the following objectives: Game Production - Game Programming - Game Design - Level & Sound Design – Storytelling - Artificial Intelligence Programming – Math & Physics –Graphics Programming – Concept Art.

There are no formal requirements, however students may be limited in their choices if they don’t have a technical background.

The lecturers provide materials through the Brightspace course of the minor. There are no mandatory resources/literature students are expected to buy. It is, however, important to note that using a 3D Game Engine or 3D modeling software can be resource-heavy, so we recommend having a decent laptop available that can run this kind of software. 

The course uses different didactical approaches. The project is the most dominant part. Next to that we offer a theoretical basis in the form of lectures and workshops.

Other approaches that are used are: student feedback sessions (guided by lecturers) and presentation sessions (in which students present their (intermediate) results).

The total of the study load is 30 credits. The grade is calculated with a weighted average between the project part and the track part (lectures, self-study, company visit).

Contact hours per week:

The contact hours are divided by the lectures you can attend, the mandatory sprint reviews, group presentations, expert sessions and tutoring meetings. The meetings are clustered but on average there will be 16-20 hours of scheduled contact per week. The rest of the time you work on your project.

There will be no written tests in this game development course! But there are assignments to make per class. 

Individual portfolio of achievements 

50% or your grade will be determined by the number of achievements you’ll earn during the course. You will be granted achievements by attending lessons and by finishing individual assignments. There are even bonus achievements that are hidden so you don’t know beforehand how to get them! 

Silver achievements are granted by attending all lectures of a track. Each track offers two gold achievements in the form of individual assignments. Each track also offers two platinum achievements, which are individual assignments of a higher skill level that have more impact on your final grade. 

In order to complete the WHOLE semester, you need at least eight Gold achievements (to get a 6 as a grade).  

If you also get eight Platinum achievements, then your final grade for the achievements is a 10. 

Making a game 

The other 50% of the grade will be determined by your group project and your individual contribution to that project. The project will be graded by the lecturers of the minor: each of them focusing on their own area of expertise.

In the minor you will work in multidisciplinary teams that are maybe bigger than you are used to. 

The language is English. 

The minor will be offered at the THUAS campus in Zoetermeer.