Question about Applied Computing

Wolfbrand Morro

Hey I'm looking into colleges as Im heading into 6th year. I really want to get into games design and was wondering how much of this particular subject is dealt with in the course? And whats it like?

MitchKoobski

I attended the course for the first year before moving to a different one. From my experience in the first year, they barely touch Games Design at that point. You won't really go properly into it until the second half of second year, or even third year. I know a couple of people who just finished second year and had to design and program a small game for one of the classes.
There's a couple of people who are in the course or who completed it that post here so they should be able to give better advice.

Sully

Game design is not covered in this course until you pick streams, I think thats in 3rd year.

Maybe Entertainment Systems is more what your looking for?

Wolfbrand Morro

Sully wrote: »

Game design is not covered in this course until you pick streams, I think thats in 3rd year.

Maybe Entertainment Systems is more what your looking for?

I understand this. I have looked up the subject before posting. What I meant was how much of the course before hand can be overlapped and how much of the core module is based solely on gaming.

Sully

Wolfbrand Morro wrote: »

I understand this. I have looked up the subject before posting. What I meant was how much of the course before hand can be overlapped and how much of the core module is based solely on gaming.

There is pretty much no gaming, bar maybe a small game in first year (if they still do it), in the course until you pick the stream. I don't think anybody here did the gaming stream, but if you have specifics ill get in touch with people who did. I cant say what is covered in the stream as I have no interest in gaming and never did it.

MitchKoobski

Sully wrote: »

There is pretty much no gaming, bar maybe a small game in first year (if they still do it), in the course until you pick the stream. I don't think anybody here did the gaming stream, but if you have specifics ill get in touch with people who did. I cant say what is covered in the stream as I have no interest in gaming and never did it.

There was no gaming in first year when I did it a year ago, unless you're thinking of the Robocode competition.We came 4th that year! The class visit to Microsoft was pretty good too.

Sully

MitchKoobski wrote: »

There was no gaming in first year when I did it a year ago, unless you're thinking of the Robocode competition.We came 4th that year! The class visit to Microsoft was pretty good too.

I did a text based game. Basic, but gaming. Was part of our programming module, but I don't think that lecturer is teaching that subject since.

2Bv¬2B

Just finished 2nd year of Applied Computing, you are better off picking Entertainment Systems. Should you go with Applied Computing you will only have a "Choice" of stream, due to very small numbers in 2nd year we did not have the choice to pick, we had to go with a majority vote on our streams and we got games development.

I would go with Entertainment Systems and then branch out to games come 2nd year. I would also recommend the games course in Carlow IT, friend of mine just finished it and he really enjoyed it.

stick-dan

carlow has a prestigious record when it comes to gaming. I've heard this too. Know one chap doing it there and he loves it. Post in carlow forum and see if they can help you out also.