Game Design Principles

Professor Heitzman’s enthusiasm for games mirrors his mission to foster student success. He walks his players through the various steps of building games in software systems and ensures that his lectures provide solid knowledge foundations for his players’ performance.

This course teaches students how to create an entire 2D and 3D video games from concept through to final executable program including not only game levels, but their transitions, phases, encounters, and supporting scenes. Since the learning curve in creating a video game is so high, communicating enough critical information to allow student developers to move into 3D game development is challenging yet rewarding.

Creating the bridge from Canvas to the more agile Rise platform and back presents the class itself as a 'game' that as it is played teaches how to create a game. Every aspect of interacting with the ID's and other folks at COIP was an absolute pleasure. The experience was so much fun and I actually miss putting together online course modules with everyone.