Building on our success with Hi-Score, Ryan and I approached faculty in the Computer Science department about creating a new course on game development. We were fortunate to meet faculty member Brian Levine (networking), and two graduate students: Brendan Burns (artificial intelligence, graphics) and Aaron St. John (networking, graphics), who were excited about the idea of a class.

The five of us met every other week during the Fall 2004 semester to plan the launch of the course for the following Spring. We knew that programming games would draw on skills we learned throughout the major, so we wanted a course primarily for upperclassmen. We also knew that, as students, cramming for tests never taught us as much as long-term team projects, so we dispensed with tests and quizzes. The final concept of the class combined assignments in AI, software engineering, networking, game design, and graphics. In addition to these single-person assignments, we wanted students to gain experience working in teams and speaking in public. For this reason, we spent the second half of the semester working on projects we chose, built on top of a shared code base. Students chose projects as varied as a sound engine, a menu system, and complete games. Simultaneously, students took over the teaching of the course with each person delivering two presentations based on his own research in game development. At the end of the semester, many students commented to me that this was the best course they've had.