Master Level Game Studies

Developer Profile: IT University of Copenhagen.

Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, PhD
serious games researcher

The IT University of Copenhagen is a hub for research into computer games. Researcher Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen has just run a course there, focusing on the practical and theoretical aspects of designing serious games.

My name is Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen. I have a degree in psychology but quite quickly focused on computer games, learning and IT first in the industry, and then took a PhD degree in computer games and learning. These days I research serious games and am starting up a company within that area. We are working on our first title Global Conflicts: Middle East.

A learning game prototype about
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.

The IT-University of Copenhagen is a crossdisciplinary university where IT is approached from a variety of angles spanning design, programming, business, user studies, etc. We have a very strong game group which has played a big role in brining two game programs to the university. This course was mostly attented by students from the game program, but is still in the early phases. The focus is mainly on game design and less on technical skills. The course was called a serious games cluster, and students work together to make a prototype for a serious game.

The entire course ran for 16 weeks, but after the first 6 the students were working on their own project indepedently so we didn't see to them a lot.

It is a masters program, so the age varies quite a lot. We have students ranging from 22-50 years (with most between 25-30 years).

Editor shot while the prototype was in development.

As to technical skills, most groups used Photoshop for 2D and 3D Studio Max for 3D. Most groups had one person that was capable within the graphics area, one in programming and at least one game designer.

The results were somewhat mixed. It turned out that there were probably too many game designers and too few that really wanted the more hands-on experiences. However, all students got a good experience with UNITY, and thought it was really intuitive and powerful compare to other simialr applications

What they learned varied a lot dending on what role in the group they took. A lot of students focused on the design challenge with serious games, and they learned a lot about reality meeting theory. Not all can be done and especially not in a tight timeplan ;)

Testing out an early version in the editor.

I think most found it quite hard and confusing but interesting. I gave them very much freedom in terms of deciding on what game to make, plan it and allocate ressources, which most found quite hard. However, they all found this to be valuable.

All students felt they actually got somewhere very fast. Even those without any programming skills.

The main problem was the overweight of game designers with a theoritical aim, which made it hard to get groups that had the necessary skills. Also, most of the students were Mac novices, so that took some time. On the other hand I am fairly convinced that Apple have gained some new customers from the course.