Master's Thesis: Facilitating the Education of Game Development

In today's Gamasutra educational feature, Lennart Nacke of the University of Magdeburg, Germany shares his Master's Thesis, which "focuses on game development and educational benefits gained from teaching games to university students," as excerpted from this provided abstract: "This thesis focuses on game development and educational benefits gained from teaching games to university students. First, it sketches the complex pipeline of tasks inherent in game development with focus on used tools. Classifying the many diverse tools used by different kinds of game developers helps to identify areas of employment within game development. A discussion of educational facilities and the specific niches of game development that they focus on allows the conclusion that many games created there only reach up to a prototypic level. Thus, requirements for a game prototyping tool are derived. The author then provides estimated solutions for these needs with an extraordinary focus on the usefulness for computer science students. This leads to an implementation of a game prototyping tool, which brings the applications of the multimedia environment Squeak into play. AFter showing the educational benefits of Squeak, one can find out about some examples of educational game development with its help. This brings further information on the game engine that was used as an essential part of the prototyping tool created for this thesis. Finally, an analysis of advantages and disadvantages of using Squeak for educational game development is done. Also, prospects and possibilities for extending the prototyping tool are discussed." You can download Nacke's thesis on the following page, in Adobe Acrobat format (no registration required).