Online Gaming Courses in 2021

Why Take Gaming Courses Online?

Are you wondering whether online gaming courses will be worth the price or time? In this section, we’ll discuss exactly how these courses will benefit you!

Comprehensive Syllabus

The gaming courses that we’re going to recommend in this article offer a comprehensive syllabus. These courses are designed to be beginner-friendly. Whether you’re a beginner, intermediate, or advanced designer – we’re certain that you’ll find something of value from these courses. 

Some of these courses offer only knowledge and will help you hone your skills, while some of them will provide certificates that’ll help you ascend. So, no matter what your requirement is, you’ll find something from these courses. 

Learn At Your Own Convenience 

The best thing about online courses is that you won’t have to maintain a schedule imposed by others. All of the courses here have a flexible schedule, and even the deadlines are very flexible. It doesn’t matter if you’re a student or a person with a full-time job, as long as you can spend a bit of time every week, you’ll be able to complete a course in no time. This is another reason why we highly recommend taking gaming courses online. No matter how much pressure you have on yourself, you can still manage some time that you can invest in these. 

Minimal Time Wasted

Finally, online gaming courses lead to zero waste. You won’t have to wait for the instructor, nor will you have to spend hours commuting. There’s no extra expenses for traveling either. We all value our time a lot, and if you want to make the most of it, online learning is the way forward! 

Top Gaming Courses Online

In this section, we’ll take a look at the best gaming courses that you can take right now!

C# Programming for Unity

C# programming language is one of the most used languages for building games with Unity. To help you learn this language in the best possible way, the University of Colorado presents their course via Coursera.

What We Liked 

The best thing about this course is that it’s absolutely free. You’ll need to pay if you want the certificate, but if you want to learn how to use C# programming for Unity only, you won’t have to pay a dime. This specialised course has been created for complete beginners who want to learn how to use the C# language for creating amazing games.

This course assumes that the learner has zero experience with coding. This means that even if you’re a beginner, you’ll be able to learn a lot from this course. The first course will start off by giving you an idea about C# programming plus Unity. Throughout the courses, you’ll keep on learning advanced stuff about C# programming so that it’s easier for you to understand the tougher subjects.

The third course is very interesting, as it teaches intermediate object-oriented programming. This course takes all the things that you’ve learned from the previous two courses, and it blends them in a way that you can learn more advanced stuff. 

The fourth and final course is designed to teach you more about data structures and design patterns. These teachings will take you a long way once you start designing games professionally, so we highly recommend finishing all of these courses once you start. 

What We Didn’t Like

This course is a specific course, which means it’s not suitable for everyone’s learning needs. For example, if you don’t want to make a game in Unity or want to use other languages than C#, then you won’t be able to benefit from this course.

Game Design and Development

If you want to learn how to develop both 2D and 3D games, then you can check this course out. This course is offered by Michigan State University via Coursera. 

What We Liked 

This online gaming course starts off with an introduction to 2D games. The first module of this course teaches you how to make a 2D shooter game. Creating and designing your own games should be a creative workflow, and you must learn how to have fun while doing so. This course emphasizes that, meaning you can learn how to create games and have fun in the process!

The second module is designed to teach you how to create 2D platformer games. In the third module, you’re going to take things up a notch, and learn how to create 3D games. The first 3D project that you’ll have is creating 3D shooters. 

The fourth module is designed to teach you how to create 3D platformer games. Once you’re done with this course, you’ll be able to create a full-fledged 3D platformer game on your own!

Finally, there’s the fifth course, which is a capstone project. This course will help you create an entire game on your own. Once you’re done with this course, you’ll be ready to handle any challenge that the gaming industry throws at you!

What We Didn’t Like

Just like the previous course, this one is a specialization course on Unity as well. Even if you master what you’ll be taught in this course, you won’t be able to use the other game designing software available out there. This is why we don’t consider this course as a comprehensive one, but it’s a good point to start out. 

Unreal Engine C++ Developer

Udemy is an amazing platform for learning different topics, and they are famous for providing quality courses. This course from Udemy teaches you a ton about C++ coding language, and it was created in association with Epic Games. 

What We Liked 

What we loved is how much this course teaches you C++ coding. It also teaches you how to use Unreal Engine 4. Although Unreal Engine 5 has been released recently, still a lot of games are being produced on Unreal Engine 4, and they will keep on using Unreal Engine 4 because this engine has a lot of potential left on it. 

So, learning Unreal Engine 4 won’t be a complete loss. Plus, if you learn how to use Unreal Engine 4, you’ll also be able to learn the 5th version easily, as they are closely related. This course not only teaches how to write a code, but it also teaches you how to write a clean code that can be understood easily. It also shares various insights on modern game development techniques that can help you overcome challenges in the future. 

You’ll learn other advanced things from this course such as advanced vehicle physics, fundamental understanding of computers, Blackboard and behavioral tree for customizable AI, animation blueprint for custom character animation, and more. 

What We Didn’t Like

Udemy is a paid platform. This means, as long as you don’t pay up for the course, you won’t be able to access it. We wish this worked like Coursera, where you could learn from a course for free, but had to pay for the certificate. Other than that, this is one of the very best gaming courses online that you can take right now.

Unity Certified 3D Artist Specialisation

This 3D artists specialisation course is offered by Unity itself, via Coursera. Like every other Coursera course, you’ll be able to take this for free. 

What We Liked 

This course teaches a great deal about the character and game design. The best thing about this course is that it starts from the very basics. At the very outset, you’ll learn how to manage your assets. You’ll learn how to create your own assets, and how to manage them so you can find them when you need them. 

The second course provides details on one of the most important things about game design, post-processing, and lighting. This course will teach you how to lighten up your game levels, how to add reflections to make the setting look more realistic, and how to process the game after you’re done adding the effects. The third module of this course will teach you how to integrate scripts for scene interactions. You’ll learn how to add a user interface and add some pre-written scripts to make the interface more interactive. 

In the fourth module, you’ll learn character setup and animation. This module will help you prepare for the certified Artist exam from Unity. Finally, the fifth module will teach you how to create cutscenes in Unity.

All of these modules are well-detailed, and if you want to be able to create cool games with great animation and cutscenes, then you should definitely try this out. 

What We Didn’t Like

This course isn’t for absolute beginners. If you’ve been using Unity for a few years to create real-time renders, then you’ll find this suitable for yourself. 

Explore Game Development

Explore Game Development and Design is a course offered by Harvard University via EdX. It’s one of the best gaming courses online that you can take right now. 

What We Liked 

This is a self-paced course that you can finish within six months. You need to invest at least six hours on this each week to finish it by the said period. What we love about this course is that it doesn’t only teach you about game development, but it provides the bigger picture. 

The program will start by providing you a good understanding of computer science, software development, and programming. You’ll get to learn different concepts like algorithms, data structures, resource management, software engineering, and security. You’ll also learn things like web development. Although some of these topics may seem a bit detached, they will help you ace the projects in the long run. 

This course doesn’t teach you a single programming language, but it teaches you multiple languages like C, Python, JavaScript, SQL, CSS, and even HTML. Plus, you’ll also learn the various principles that govern 2D and 3D games. You’ll not only learn physics, but you’ll also learn about sound, collision detection, and animation. 

It will also provide insights into Unity, Lua, C#, and LÖVE 2D. Overall, it’s a great course for getting into game development. It’s definitely one of the most comprehensive courses out there because it will teach you about more concepts and languages than most other courses out there. So, if you’re looking forward to taking online gaming courses, we highly recommend you check this out!

What We Didn’t Like

The only drawback of this course is that you need to pay to enrol in this, and it does cost a lot in comparison to others. However, if you can pay for that amount, you definitely should because it will pay off at the end of the day. This is one of the few courses that will benefit you heavily down the line.

Gaming Courses Online – Our Summary

These are the top gaming courses online that you can take right now. We highly recommend checking each of them out, because all of them offer some advantages and some drawbacks. As you can see, not all of them are generalised courses, but most of them are specialised courses. You should take the specific courses if you are looking to be an expert on a particular subject matter. If you want to learn about game development as a whole, then you should definitely try out the course from Harvard University, as it touches all the details that you’ll need to be a developer!