And we're on... the game development program: vol. 2 is on its way. 

When I think of 4 years back, when Kevin Schut and I start envisioning the creation of a multidisciplinary program where we would bring in computer scientists, musicians, artists, communications specialists, managers, and marketers to build a game from scratch -from game concept to software development and marking-, it all seems so long ago... and yet, in some ways, so very recent. 

After many, many months of planning and jumping through administrative hoops, we launched the program in the Summer of 2008 with 24 senior students from 5 different departments and it ran until June 2009, when we released Label:Rise of Band, a turn-based strategy game.

That first run of the game development program was a huge learning experience for all those involved and, in so many ways, was a tremendous success: Kevin and I were able to put together a meaningful set of academic materials that addressed a lot of the objectives our very diverse and multidisciplinary team, we managed to complete an original game (although not quite to the level of completeness we initially set ourselves to reach), the students were very satisfied with the course overall, and nobody died in the process. (even though some of us were wondering if we would all survive towards the end of the production schedule. :) 

When planning this second edition of the game program a few things have changed based on what we learned from the first time:

1. We determined that we needed to start earlier in the year in order to have a better chance at completing the game. The design team started working on the game design since the Summer 2010 semester and the team leaders took a directed study in the Fall in addition to the prerequisite course based on their specialty.
2. Since the last time, my role at the university has changed and, as CIO, I no longer teach full-time but focus on administration. So, we invited Dr. Sean Ho to participate on the teaching role from the technology perspective and I will serve as consultant from the implementation and management sides during the Fall and Spring, taking a more active teaching role in the Summer 2011.
3. This new game is inspired on an idea from Dr. Chad Friesen, a chemistry professor. We had hoped to have a chemistry student enrolled for the entire development as a subject matter consultant. This didn't quite work as we had planned but Dr. Friesen has become our subject matter expert.
4. We decided to "outsource" our music assets to two students in the composition course so that they could obtain Music credits for their work. This worked this time as the music needs are not nearly as huge as when we were building Label:Rise of Band, a game based on the music industry, where we required 4 full-time musicians involved for the entire duration of the project.
5. Our line up of guest speakers was better organized to coincide with the development schedule and we were able to have more people from industry. Dr. Andrea Soberg, dean of Business and HR specialist, kicked off the semester with her fabulous lecture on team building. We had Crystal Wang, former artist from Electronic Arts (EA), and Mark Halvorson, Communications prof. and design specialist, talking about character design and the art design process in the gaming industry; Kelly Zmak, former president of Radical Entertainment, talking about the gaming industry, development processes and business models; and Jonathan Young, software developer at Ubisoft and formerly at EA, talking about life in the Games Industry from a software developer and Christian perspectives.

It is exciting to see the new team working hard on their different roles. As with any software project, the unknowns always exist, but there are not nearly as many as there were the last time. The game is different, the people and personalities are different, but, so far, it is as exciting a process as the first time.