Welcome to the first course in the game design and development specialization. You're about to start the exciting journey in the game making. I'm Brian Winn, the lead instructor of the specialization in this first course. The teaching staff includes both myself and my TA, Declan McClintock. You'll see or hear from both of us in the video lectures to follow. I also have included links to several YouTube videos to provide other perspectives, knowledge, and interest. Most notably, I've included several by Mark Brown from his Game Makers Toolkit series, as well as a few from the extra credit series, and some recorded talks from the Game Developers Conference. I encourage you to watch these videos to add depth and breadth to my materials. This specialization is all about making games. How cool is that? But before we get ahead of ourselves, I'd like to start with a bit of a disclaimer. Game playing and game development are not the same thing. Playing is important and knowing good and bad in design, but game development is much more rigorous than playing. It's comparable to watching film versus film production. Watching film is enjoyable. Making film is a lot of hard work. Just because you enjoy playing games does not mean that you'll enjoy making them. Fortunately for many like myself, they actually enjoy it more. But for some they decide, hey, I just want to play games. And that's okay. This is part of the learning process. In either case, this specialization will help you learn either way. This specialization will give a sampling of most of the aspects of game development including design, engineering, art, production, quality assurance, and audio. We'll touch upon each of these things, but only scratch them at a surface level. This specialisation is met as an introduction, a first step. After this specialisation, if you desire more, you can dive deeper into one or more of these disciplines. Let's talk about the game industry for a minute. As a trend over the last 30 years, the game industry has been expanding. Recent news news statistics show the global industry as a nearly $160 billion industry across multiple game platforms, including mobile, console and PC games. There is also year over year growth across the world. Notice the size of the markets outside of North America. Game playing is truly a global passion. So there is growing opportunity in the game industry, but it's still a competitive marketplace. There are some parallels to Hollywood and the film industry here as well. There are a lot of people that have dreams of getting into the industry, but skill, experience, motivation and personal connections are the best way to get in. Overall, like most things in life, it requires commitment to succeed. Commitment, like taking a specialization such as this. Fortunately, game development concepts apply beyond interactive entertainment to industries such as the serious games industry, and the much larger interactive media or digital media industries. That is, the knowledge and skills you learn making games are applicable to many jobs today. Beyond the industries, we can also look at game platforms, distribution channels, and the various game makers. You may find yourself with some combination of interest across this table. For example, you might be primarily interested in digital distribution of a serious game on a VR platform as an independent development studio. Or you may be interested in working on a triple A entertainment console game that are sold at retail by a major publisher. Overall, many of you have different motivators to take this specialization. Some are taking it because they want a career in game development. They are curious about game development and want to learn more. They think it will be good fun and want to pursue game making as a hobby. Or maybe they can use game making skills in other disciplines. With that said, I structured the socialization to service all these needs with a focus on those interested long term in careers in the game industry. I'll teach both theory and practice in the specialisation. A lot of the theory comes out in the concept lectures. A lot of the practice comes out through the technical lectures you'll watch and the projects that you'll do. One of the best ways to make games is by doing it. Therefore, we'll definitely be making games. In particular, in this first course, you'll be making two projects. First, you'll be introduced to the unity game engine and editor by creating the solar system project. Then you'll create your first full fledged game in the form of a 2D shooter. In both projects, we will guide you through the process, introducing concepts and then putting them into practice. And across this course, we'll also discuss the game design process, game engines, game development in unity, and unity programming concepts. I like the phrase, game development is hard fun. It takes a lot of work, but hopefully it's very rewarding work. And we're learning about and working on games. So, it definitely should be fun. So let's talk a little bit more about the sequencing of a specialization. As I said, the first course focuses on an introduction to the technical elements of game development or actually building a game. And like I just mentioned, you go through two projects, the solar system project to get up and running with unity and the 2D shooter game project. The second course builds on the foundation of game development and adds in game design by talking about the design play and experience framework. You'll also take on your second game project in this course in the form of a 2D platformer. The third course add intermediate development techniques and unity, by working on a 3D shooter game while we continue discuss game design concept. The fourth course rounds out your development skills by creating a 3D platformer game. We also explore how to generate and document your own game ideas while discussing the game industry and their impact on society. The specialization ends with a capstone project where you will design and develop a game of your own design. So we're off and running, please pace yourself through the material. I've tried to put together a really solid foundation in game design and development for you. I'm certain you'll get a lot out of this course and the entire specialisation, if you stick with it, and remember to have fun along the way. I suggest jumping right into the next set of content now and enjoy the course. [MUSIC]
