Does Parsons have a major in game design? Many students have this doubt. The answer we got from online search is no, and the search results on Parsons' official website seem to be no either. Does Parsons really have no major in game design? The answer to this question: yes, and no. What do you mean? First of all, Parsons did not set up a special game design specialty like LCC Game Design. However, when applying for Parsons, students can indeed choose Game Design as their intention. The mystery lies in the Design and Technology (DT) displayed in Parsons' official website search. Parsons' game design is a professional direction set up under DT. Today, Natural Light will talk with you about learning game design in Parsons.
How about learning game design in Parsons?
Although Parsons has no specific expertise in game design, it is the same as the Game Center specially built by NYU Tisch, Parsons School of Design Parsons also has a special New School Games as an independent game design plan. Today, we will compare Parsons New School Games with NYU Tisch Game Center to see how wild it is to learn game design in Parsons?
First of all, on the homepage of New School Games, we will see the following sentence:
The screenshot is from the official website of New School Games
"Some artists will integrate different disciplines such as oil painting and sculpture when creating. For New School Games, we advocate combining games with fashion, film, law, science, illustration, sound art, architecture, social research, and any other professional disciplines or fields we can obtain. The direction of game design we teach includes challenge games, social games, mobile games, serious/functional games, video games, computer games, physical games, large-scale games and games designed with various interesting media. "
In New School Games, everyone's daily life is playing
It is not difficult to see that Parsons has a lot of courage to play. Game design not only emphasizes interdisciplinary integration of various disciplines; Secondly, it also requires diversification and creativity. Parsons can teach in all game fields, whether you can think of it or not. This is very similar to NYU's Game Center. Students can make full use of college resources to explore and develop in a variety of ways. In other words, it gives students great freedom and development space.
Parsons Game Design Major Selection:
If you want to study game design in Parsons, you can choose from the following two majors: Design and Technology with both undergraduate and graduate degrees, and Media Studies with only graduate degrees:
The screenshot is from the official website of New School Games
But as we said at the beginning of today, these two majors are not completely targeted game design majors, but students can choose the direction of game design under these two majors as their specific professional development options in the future.
Today we mainly talk about Design and Technology. In my opinion, Design and Technology is conceptually similar to the ITP/IMA+Game Center compared with NYU Tisch. It is a relatively complex "big project". On the one hand, the professional name gives a wide range of "design" and "technology", covering almost all the design and scientific fields you can think of at once; On the other hand, the major itself has also subdivided specific selection directions, including both the ITP/IMA direction and the game design direction. The direction of game design is "Game Design", similar to ITP/IMA is "Creative Technology".
No matter which direction you choose, you need to be clear: this major is based on a major prerequisite, that is, "solve design problems by refining software, hardware, art, and design creatively" - creatively solve design problems in an environment that integrates software, hardware, art, and design.
As a whole, Parsons also emphasizes the role of code/code programming in the learning process. Parsons even said that "code comes your second language and express means of connecting with others". This is actually a prerequisite. If you want to play and dare to play, first of all, you should be able to solve problems creatively in thinking and consciousness, and at the same time, you should master hard skills.
Screenshot from Parsons official website
Parsons game design emphasizes the combination of innovation and technology:
It should be noted that Parsons game design emphasizes the search for aesthetic concepts of game design in the environment of combining innovation and technology. This is similar to Game Center. Game Center views game design in this way - we look at games as a creative form of art/We regard games as a creative form of art. There is not enough technical content, but also aesthetic value to attract audiences from the artistic aspect.
When we talked about games in the past, most people might think: "Oh, games are used to relax and entertain the public, to kill time, or to increase interaction." However, Parsons However, it gives a deeper definition of game design. It puts game design in the context of the development of the whole society and the world. Combining the concepts of Design and Technology, it believes that game design can be used to explore activism, social change, scientific development, information visualization, and educational significance.
As for professional aesthetic concept exploration, it is mainly reflected in the interdisciplinary direction. For example, students can combine the concepts of installation art, interactive design, exhibition space, experimental exploration and other disciplines to extend the game in multiple spaces and dimensions.
In order to help students develop the broader meaning of game design in more directions, Parsons also set up a special laboratory PETLab, which is different from Game Center.
If Game Center is a premise to help students better "design" games, so that students can better combine technology and art to explore new fields. Then PETLab has more social and cultural implications.
Screenshot from Parsons official website
PETLab Society cooperates with Red Cross Society, climatologists, geographers, political scientists, etc., and is committed to solving some problems in the world - floods, climate, economy, extreme weather, world disasters, etc. from the perspective of game design.
Like the following game called<Open House>, players in the game will discuss and compete with each other by identifying housing materials. For example, players will play the role of stakeholders - residents and sales staff, and try to persuade each other to choose different housing materials to obtain points. The original purpose of this game is to improve people's understanding of environmental sustainability.
Screenshot from Parsons PETLab official website
Seeing such a design proposition, I think many students may have found the clue. It is difficult for us to associate such a proposition with "games" in our past cognition. However, under the specialty of Design and Technology, Parsons has discovered the definition of games in other fields.
Moreover, Parsons has done more than that in game design! In addition to PET Lab, there is also communication with Quest to Learn, which is committed to combining digital tools, art design and traditional learning; It also cooperates with the non-profit social welfare game organization Games for Change to develop projects.
To sum up, Parsons' game design can be as arbitrary as it is dare to "play". It is not enough to provide experience for individual individuals. It is the original intention of Parsons' game to directly solve problems for groups in need in the world and create new value concepts.
Parsons Game Design Curriculum:
Finally, when it comes to specific courses, how to realize such a big idea? Like other professional courses of Parsons, game design also focuses on studio and drama, but the content is very targeted, such as the Core Studio Objcet: Game course in sophomore year.
Screenshot from Parsons official website
The learning focus of this course is to let students understand the heart of games: the design of interaction in the continuous creation. The student union mainly learns the creation concept, media and creation technology of game objects, so as to master the composition, experience, game community building and other knowledge of the game.
For example, students will think and discuss: can we find common ground in all types of games? How does a game work? As an interactive experience, what is the biggest difference between games and other interactive experiences? What are the main elements of building a game? How do players interact with the game? How does the game intersect with community order and culture and create new community order and culture?
In the undergraduate stage, Parsons first gave students a very big concept of game design to let them know that the original game design can also be used to solve the world's cultural, economic and historical problems; Secondly, it also pays more attention to the creativity and experimentation of students' learning. Next, we will talk about MFA/graduate students. This stage of learning can be seen as a deep exploration of specific professional content, which will be more in-depth and broad, and will also have more professional concepts.
In the professional description part, Parsons gives a definition. Students will conduct research in an interdisciplinary environment. For example, students can cooperate with students in visual design, photography, pure art, illustration and other majors.
Screenshot from Parsons official website
Specifically, in terms of curriculum, the graduate stage does not distinguish between specific games and CT directions like the undergraduate stage, but from specific research dimensions, according to different creative themes.
Finally, let's talk about the specific Study abroad in game design For application, because Parsons does not specifically divide majors, students need to choose a specific professional direction for creation when applying.
To summarize today's content, does Parsons have a major in game design?, Parsons has not set up the professional subject option of Game Design separately, but there are still options for students who want to develop future planning in game design, that is, Design and Technology (DT). The major has two major directions, one of which is Game Design.
Secondly, "How wild is it when learning game design in Parsons?" Parsons not only dares to play, but also has high requirements for playing. First of all, it is reflected in the way, with special emphasis on students' interdisciplinary awareness, and requires students to combine game design with different disciplines for creative design.
Secondly, in terms of content, different from our previous understanding of games - entertainment, Parsons game design also emphasizes the combination of social topics and world topics with broader significance to spread the definition of "game". In other words, in Parsons' view, game is not only a game, but also can help people to think and reflect on a specific thing under a pleasant interactive experience, so as to get the final solution of the problem at a deeper level.
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