Game Engineering Minor

Introduction

The global video game market is valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, and is experiencing unprecedented growth. Game designers and programmers are in higher demand than ever. As the industry grows and develops, so does our commitment to giving our students full access to the technology and leading information necessary for them to dive headfirst into this exciting area. Imagine working with cutting-edge technology to create one of the world’s newest and most popular forms of entertainment. Our Game Engineering Minor gives you that opportunity.

Research at the Game Innovation Lab

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s Game Innovation Lab provides a dynamic and engaging environment for faculty and the students they mentor to conduct innovative research on artificial intelligence for games.  Working with industry partners and research facilities internationally, the lab provides opportunities for graduate students (and a handful of advanced undergraduates) who aspire to challenge convention and break barriers within the industry. Topics studied include procedural content generation for games, open-ended learning in virtual environments, co-creative systems where humans and AI algorithms collaborate in video games, bots that play like humans, and prediction of human experiences and playstyles from data. A good way of getting involved with research in the lab is to take the CS-GY 6943  AI for Games class.

Prerequisites

Students are required to complete a minimal core curriculum in Computer Science (CS) before enrolling in the minor (or demonstrate equivalent mastery), in order to be well prepared for the game engineering coursework, as well as a Calculus course. Students completing the minor from outside of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering CS major program can request permission to apply a portion of these prerequisite credits to the overall credit total for the minor. At most six credits of the following courses may be applied to the minor (substituting for the University-wide elective and one of the core electives), provided they or an equivalent course are not required as part of the students major.

• CS-UY 1114 Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving 4 Credits
• CS-UY 1134 Data Structures and Algorithms 4 Credits *
• CS-UY 1113 Problem Solving and Programming I 3 Credits
• CS-UY 1123 Problem Solving and Programming II 3 Credits
• CS-UY 2124 Object Oriented Programming 4 Credits *

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  *Note: Students who entered NYU Tandon prior to FA16 may take CS-UY 1124 Object Oriented Programming  and CS-UY 2134 Data Structures and Algorithms  instead of CS-UY 1134 and CS-UY 2124.

Curriculum

The Game Engineering Minor emphasizes mastery of computer programming skills relevant to Game Engineering, combined with hands-on practice building games with other in studio-style courses, and electives drawn from NYU’s broad offerings in the games domain. Students are also expected to complete a prerequisite core curriculum in Computer Science (CS) to be well prepared for the other courses (or to demontrate equivalent mastery).

Course Distribution

The minor consists of 15 credits. Each course taken may fulfill either a core or an elective requirement.