I attend Iowa State University (ISU) in Ames, Iowa and while the middle of a statewide cornfield doesn't exactly scream "Silicon Valley," the game development opportunities here in central Iowa are expanding. At Iowa State, there is no specific program or degree for game development, but there are a number of electives that provide interested students with the tools to explore their own development. The real strength of ISU's game curriculum is its Human Computer Interaction (HCI) graduate program, specifically the research going on in the Virtual Reality Applications Center.
I came to ISU as a transfer student looking for admission into the rigorous design program, specifically graphic design. Compared to fine arts programs at R-1 universities or liberal arts colleges, the design practice at this land grant university is geared toward pragmatic design skills for use in the real world rather than conceptual fine arts and theory.
When I transferred, I knew I wanted to design video games after graduation. So I started on the ground floor with graphic, web, or interface design by utilizing the school's design curriculum, which would hopefully lead to game design later in my career.
The core design classes were extremely challenging and competitive. In my industrial design course (DSN 102) more than 60 percent of the people dropped out after four weeks, and of the remaining students, only three made it into graphic design. In order to get into one of the selective programs (graphic design, landscape architecture, architecture, or interior design) the general plan was to work yourself sick, not sleep, and consume mass quantities of vending machine foods. I loved this cut-throat way of working and the ensuing competition, which had a lot to do with my acceptance into the graphic design program.
Many of the projects in the introductory design studios were open-ended and conceptual, qualities that would continue into later courses in graphic design and inform all my subsequent studios. This exploratory approach to design provided a well-rounded understanding of the underlying elements of design, as opposed to a more practical approach of designing for specific clients, advertisers, or marketers.
Along with the hefty graphic design core classes, I decided soon after my acceptance to pursue a career in game development head on, whether on my own, in a student club, or with the assistance of faculty at ISU. The summer before my second semester at Iowa State, I drew up case studies on my favorite games, breaking down their elements. Out of that analysis came my first pet project, one that I would explore for the next four semesters in an experimental game development studio: 409X.
The 409X course acted as a blank-slate playground for students to collaborate across disciplines and work on projects that we all hoped would to turn into a viable game concept or demo. The first generation made a game called Treefort Wars, which they submitted to the Independent Games Festival and placed as student finalists. The way I understand it, their success was largely attributed to their talented team of stars, and their tireless work ethic. They went on to later form Annex Studios, which then dissolved and reformed in Cedar Falls, Iowa as 8monkey Labs .
My classmates and I made up the late second generation of this course. Our 409X class wasn't as successful, largely due to our lack of technical expertise compared to the first generation's. The majority of the students in my first two semesters were plucked from the Integrated Studio Arts program, so the class was rife with concept art, but lacked programmers to do anything with it. Only some of the students were moderately skilled at modeling, and fewer still could animate and rig those models. Modeling and animation courses are hard to come by for video game development.
The professors do their best to collaborate with the game development students on problems they may be having in 409X on the modeling or animation side. However the curriculum as a whole is not supported well enough to warrant comprehensive training.
From left: Mike Boxleiter, Ted Martens, Greg Wohlwend, and Josh Larson after hours in the Virtual Reality Application Cernter.
