Game Education Summit North America 2010 - Presentation

School Panel: Developing Game Education and Game Engine Technology
Tue, 2010-06-22 14:30 - 15:20
Curriculum Track
Veli-Pekka Piirainen
Lecturer in Game Programming/Head of Game Development Lab
Kajaani University of Applied Sciences

Presentation Summary:


A three year EU funded project for developing game technology and game education at Kajaani University of Applied Sciences in Finland started at year 2008. What are the experiences so far and how the future of the game education in Northern Finland looks like?

Paper Abstract:


Kajaani University of Applied Sciences in Finland has provided game programming education since year 2006. A three year EU funded project for developing game technology and game education started year 2008. Target of the project is to establish a new curriculum for games development including game programming, game graphics, game design and game production. Another target of the project is to develop a portable smart phone game engine (Kajak3D) for educational and game business purposes.

In the new curriculum learning by doing is the keyword. Students form production teams of six to eight people to carry out their own commercial games, which will be digitally distributed on market (AppStore etc.). Student teams make also subcontracting for different game studios. Besides working in game lab developing games, students will get theoretical lessons, which fully support their game project development phases.