Have you always dreamed of developing your own game? Did you ever wonder how the game you played was built? Or are you intrigued with topics like concept art and storytelling? In this minor, you will be part of a (bigger) multidisciplinary team developing your own game. You will gain experience in collaborating with people from different disciplines and are encouraged to enrich your way of thinking in the game development domain. 

You are free (within certain constraints) to come up with a proposal, a so-called game design document (GGD), for a game. This proposal will be assessed on complexity and feasibility. Your project team consists of members from different disciplines. It is important that everybody has the possibility to develop themselves. 

During the course, you’ll be focusing your time on working on the game as a group and building an individual portfolio of achievements. Achievements are awarded by attending classes and submitting individual assignments. 

At the end of the course, we host an expo for you to showcase your game. We invite the Dutch Gaming industry, form a jury of industry experts, and award one group with The Best Game Award. 

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In this minor, you will work in a group consisting of eight students, which requires some group management skills. Additionally, every student chooses classes to focus on a specific role(s) they will fulfill within the group. It is mandatory to attend at least four different classes, but all classes are scheduled in a way you could attend all of them. 

Below you’ll find the different roles and some examples of their responsibilities. 

Game Producer 

Responsible for managing the group and its Game Design Document, organizing the EXPO and showcase. 

Game Designer 

Design the experience the game tries to achieve for its players through its core mechanics. Main contributor to the Game Design Document (GDD). 

Level Designer 

Create beautiful levels, tell a story in each level and invent puzzles. 

Sound Designer 

Make the game feel alive and keep your players' heads banging by designing sound effects and background music. 

Storyteller 

Use the game to engage the player in an intriguing story. 

Concept Artist 

Convey your ideas for use in video games before it is put into the final product. Combine traditional techniques with modern day technology and learn about different stages in the design stadium like sketching, inking and rendering.  

3D Modeller 

You translate the narrative and artistic ideas into fully fledged 3D models, with proper textures, lighting and animations. 

Programmer 

Code the game mechanics and the main gameplay loop, communicate with the engine code, unit test mechanics. 

You can also focus on programming the Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the game: making interesting enemies and challenging the player without making the game impossible to beat. Generate entire game worlds and create natural looking behaviours. 

Finally, as a programmer you can also spend your time on the graphics of the game. You’ll be optimizing the code through shaders (coding on the GPU), creating visual effects and applying post-processing.

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The minor Game Development is suitable for students from different disciplines that have an interest in learning how to develop games, and enjoy collaborating in a multidisciplinary team. 

If you have ever wondered how games are made or have already made games in the past, the course is for you. We offer you a cool project in which you build your own game and allow you to develop your individual game development skills, but we expect effort and your time in return. 

This minor could interest students from different programs within The Hague University of Applied Sciences. By offering you to apply for different roles (profiles) the course is especially suitable for HBO-ICT and CMD. Students of other programs can join as well but may be limited to the role they can choose (see entry requirements).

Depending on the chosen profile, this minor offers a combination of the following objectives: Game Production - Game Programming - Game Design - Level & Sound Design – Concept Art - Storytelling - Artificial Intelligence Programming ––Graphics Programming.

There are no formal requirements for entry to this course. However, students may be limited in their choices if they don’t have a technical (software development) background.

The lecturers provide materials through the Brightspace course of the minor. There are no mandatory resources/literature students are expected to buy. It is, however, important to note that using a 3D Game Engine or 3D modeling software can be resource-heavy, so we recommend having a decent laptop available that can run this kind of software.

The course uses different didactical approaches. The project in which you create your own game as a group is the most dominant part. Next to that we offer a theoretical basis in the form of lectures and workshops. 

Other approaches that are used are: student feedback sessions (guided by lecturers) and presentation sessions (in which students present their (intermediate) results). 

The total of the study load is 30 credits. The grade is calculated with a weighted average between the project part and the track part (lectures, self-study, company visit). 

Contact hours per week

The contact hours are divided by the lectures you can attend, the mandatory sprint reviews, group presentations, expert sessions and tutoring meetings.  

On average, we expect students to be at school for at least 24 hours (three days) per week. This time is divided between the contact hours mentioned above, and working on the project with your teammates at school.  

As a full-time minor, the total study load is expected to be roughly 40 hours a week. 

There will be no written tests in this game development course. There are, however, individual assignment to make per class. 

Individual portfolio of achievements 

50% or your grade will be determined by the number of achievements you’ll earn during the course. You will be granted achievements by attending lessons and by finishing individual assignments. 

Silver achievements are granted by attending all lectures of a track. Each track offers two gold achievements in the form of individual assignments. Each track also offers two platinum achievements, which are individual assignments of a higher skill level that have more impact on your final grade. 

To complete the WHOLE semester, you need at least eight gold achievements (to get a 6 as a grade).  

If you also get eight platinum achievements, then your final grade for the achievements is a 10. 

Making a game 

The other 50% of the grade will be determined by your group project and your individual contribution to that project. The project will be graded by the lecturers of the minor, each of them focusing on their own area of expertise. 

In the minor you will work in multidisciplinary teams that are maybe bigger than you are used to. 

The language is English. 

The minor will be offered at the HHS campus in Zoetermeer.