Use of interdisciplinary teams in game development

The development of computer games is labor- intensive. Modern game development requires the effort of a team of skilled professionals to integrate multimedia content with complex software. Producing high-quality software game products requires large teams to rely on high levels of communication, organization, and planning to avoid costly delays and failures. The authors teach several courses dealing with the application of software engineering principles and art asset creation in the development of computer games at their respective institutions. ABET accreditation guidelines require students to participate on interdisciplinary teams to solve engineering problems. Students in the first author's advanced game design course work with students from the second author's game animation art course. This paper summarizes the content of the advanced game design course and the authors' experiences using development teams in game design courses. Student evaluations of this interdisciplinary team course offering indicate high levels of satisfaction.