Austin Community College Gets Vicious Game Engine

Austin Community College students studying game development will soon have the chance to work with the Vicious game engine. Vicious Cycle Software, Inc., a premier developer of interactive entertainment software, today announced that it will soon make available to students the Vicious Engine, a comprehensive suite of middleware software. The professional grade tool is currently in use by a wide variety of working video game developers. Designed to make time-consuming processes such as rendering, scripting, debugging, and AI development easier and more streamlined, Vicious Engine will prove to be an invaluable tool for student developers to efficiently prototype and test their games. "We believe that introducing students to Vicious Engine will give them a distinct advantage," said Garry Gaber, associate professor in the Visual Communications Department Full-Time Faculty, Game Development Institute and founder of Escape Hatch Entertainment. "Utilizing the Vicious Engine will allow them to enhance and develop their skills and build quality games to include in their portfolios, and for that reason it will be a perfect addition to our curriculum." "Vicious Engine is an ideal teaching tool because it gives students the control they need to build games without being forced to dedicate significant time to actual engine development," said Eric Peterson, president and CEO of Vicious Cycle Software. "There are talented students at Austin Community College, and we look forward to seeing their creative minds at work." Although it is rare for community colleges to offer specific video game development degrees, Austin Community College has its own Game Development Institute, a multidisciplinary program that offers associate degree tracks in computer science and visual communications with three specializations: game programming, game design and game art.