My Major is Gaming…

Times have changed. You can now take a university class in writing games. In fact, YOU can now take a university class about writing games because [Dave Churchill] of Memorial University has put all 22 of his lectures up for your enjoyment. [Dr. Churchill] isn’t planning on releasing the assignment files, but you can still get a lot from watching the videos. Apparently, the classes were also live streamed on Twitch.

The games build on SFML so the resulting games can be portable. The library abstracts input, graphics, sound, and networking.

The games use an entity component system (ECS) which is one possible architecture. Like any kind of software, of course, there are many different ways to get the job done. The games appear to be 2D, so if you were planning on writing the next Doom, you’ll need to do a little extracurricular work.

Like most classes, the first one (see below) starts off with some housekeeping, but it picks up rapidly. You should probably already know C++ if you want to get the most out of it.

The course focuses on desktop computer games, but the ideas would apply even to writing things for consoles. If video games aren’t your thing, you can always hack your own non-degree on some other computer science topic.