In the Fall 2003, The Game Design Initiative at Cornell (GDIAC) was formed by a group of students, faculty, and alumni who wished to study game design in an academic setting. GDIAC supports undergraduate courses in game design and development, game-oriented graduate student projects, a youth-outreach program, and game-related faculty research. Through its efforts, GDIAC strives to:
GDIAC currently pursues its missions by creating opportunities for students to develop projects in courses and credit-bearing independent studies. Students with skill and interest in music, art, writing, programming, and/or engineering work in multidisciplinary teams on the interdisciplinary field of game design. Many students continue their game projects over several semesters, thereby developing a large portfolio of technical work. Other students also pursue GDIAC courses as opportunities to develop teamwork and communication skills. CIS 300, a core GDIAC course and Game Design Minor requirement, satisfies Engineering students' technical communication requirement. And some students simply want something fun to do before graduating, even though GDIAC courses are amongst the most challenging at Cornell.
GDIAC works under the guidance of the college-level entity Computing and Information Sciences (CIS). GDIAC faculty run project-oriented courses (INFO 200, CIS 300, CIS 400, and independent studies) in which students explore diverse aspects of game design and game development. The GDIAC development and assessment team work closely with faculty members in CIS to enhance game-related courses and further establish game design as a theoretically and technically rigorous field. GDIAC works closely with the game industry with a variety of research and development projects, as well as program feedback and student placement.
The Game Design Initiative At Cornell University started as a feasibility study coordinated by the Department of Computer Science in the Fall 2001 semester. Originally launched by David Schwartz (RIT), Rajmohan Rajagopalan (Smoking Gun Games), and Rama Hoetzlein (UC Santa Barbara). Since then, the interdisciplinary nature of the project has inspired collaborations with the Cornell's Department of Fine Arts (Professors Todd McGrain and Xiaowen Chen), Department of Music (Professors David Borden and Kevin Ernste), and Department of Communication (Profesor Michael Shapiro), which has resulted in technically and artistically impressive student games.
Currently, GDIAC is led by Walker White. Dr. White is the project leader of the data-driven games research in the Cornell Database group. He is also the the instructor for CIS 300, which will next be offered in the Spring of 2008.
GDIAC is supported by Cornell University's Department of Computer Science and the Intelligent Information Systems Institute.
