Epic Games has decided to teach game development using the Unreal Engine. The company announced the launch of an educational course on game design on the Coursera platform.
According to Epic Games, the course is primarily aimed at beginners and focuses on the fundamentals of the profession. Participants will learn about key aspects of level design, visual programming, UX and UI design in games, working with Blueprint, and more.
The course has a strong practical approach. By the end of the course, students are expected to develop their own complete game. After submitting their final project, they will receive a professional certificate.
The course consists of eight modules, five of which are already available on Coursera, with three more to be released by the end of the fall. The total length of the lectures is over 90 hours. Currently, they are only available in English, but Epic Games plans to release the material in ten more languages, including Russian.
The Epic Games course is included with Coursera Plus. According to the platform's policy, new subscribers can access all online courses for free for seven days, after which they must pay $49 monthly. In the FAQ section, Epic Games noted that if a student intends to spend less than ten hours per week on their course over six months, it would cost approximately $300.
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Game design courses can also be found on the educational platform WN Academy. For instance, in mid-October, the founder of the indie studio Vengeance Games, Konstantin Sakhnov, will launch the course "Manage The Game: From Middle to Master", where he will discuss the main features of working as a game designer. Slightly earlier (September 23), WN Academy will launch the course "LiveOps in Games", by Vadim Bulatov—an industry expert involved in game monetization at studios like Wargaming, Beresnev Games, Moon Active, and Playkot.