Program Arcade Games - Learn Computer Science (Simpson College)

Offered by Simpson College,
Program Arcade Games - Learn Computer Science (Simpson College)

This is a first semester course in learning how to program. Are you here because you want to create your own games? Excellent! But you might soon find that this looks like work. We all know we'd rather skip work and go farming for gold in WoW or Eve or some other game, right? So why learn to program? What does a person get out of it?

  • Learn to Make Games and Get Paid

Learn how to make games and get paid? Ok, I won't pay you, but if you learn to program, there are plenty of people that will pay you. Here's how to profit:
Learn to program games.
Have fun making your own games.
Select favorite job offer.
Profit.
Look, no ??? in this plan!
Think about it. You can play games, but anyone can do that and it really isn't much of an accomplishement in life if you think about it. Or you can learn to create games. People care about that.
Now you may be here to create games, but tell your parents and co-workers you are studying computer science. It sounds better.

  • Why Study Computer Science?

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), Computer Engineering is the best-paid degree, Computer Science is third best paying degree, and Information Science is the 10th. Most of the other degrees are also in technology-related and involve software.
Computer engineers work at integrating computer programs with hardware. In today's engineering market, most of those engineering jobs will need to know some computer programming. Information Science is a degree for people who like computers but never really liked programming. This book aims to make sure that isn't you.
While learning to program games, you can be studying towards the best paying four year degrees you can get. And let's be honest, those engineering degrees usually take five years. Computer Science is a great bet for a career.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Machine Learning: Regression (Coursera) Coursera
University of Washington

Machine Learning: Regression (Coursera)

Case Study - Predicting Housing Prices. In our first case study, predicting house prices, you will create models that predict a continuous value (price) from input features (square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms,...). This is just one of the many places where regression can be applied. Other applications range from predicting health outcomes in medicine, stock prices in finance, and power usage in high-performance computing, to analyzing which regulators are important for gene expression.

Jun 15th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Python Project for Data Science (Coursera) Coursera
IBM

Python Project for Data Science (Coursera)

This mini-course is intended to for you to demonstrate foundational Python skills for working with data. The completion of this course involves working on a hands-on project where you will develop a simple dashboard using Python. This course is part of the IBM Data Science Professional Certificate and the IBM Data Analytics Professional Certificate.

Jun 18th 2026
1 Week
Software Engineering Virtual Experience (JP Morgan) Other Providers
JP Morgan

Software Engineering Virtual Experience (JP Morgan)

JPMorgan Chase has traders in all the major financial centers and creates a marketplace for asset classes around the globe for our investor clients. You’re going to assist with some development of an alternative way to visualize and analyze share price data for our traders – this will alert them of potential trading opportunities.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Principles of Computing (Part 2) (Coursera) Coursera
Rice University

Principles of Computing (Part 2) (Coursera)

This two-part course introduces the basic mathematical and programming principles that underlie much of Computer Science. Understanding these principles is crucial to the process of creating efficient and well-structured solutions for computational problems. To get hands-on experience working with these concepts, we will use the Python programming language. The main focus of the class will be weekly mini-projects that build upon the mathematical and programming principles that are taught in the class.

Jun 15th 2026
4 Weeks
Cloud Computing Concepts: Part 2 (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Cloud Computing Concepts: Part 2 (Coursera)

Cloud computing systems today, whether open-source or used inside companies, are built using a common set of core techniques, algorithms, and design philosophies—all centered around distributed systems. Learn about such fundamental distributed computing "concepts" for cloud computing. Some of these concepts include: Clouds, MapReduce, key-value stores, Classical precursors, Widely-used algorithms, Classical algorithms, Scalability, Trending areas, And more!

Jun 15th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Java for Android (Coursera) Coursera
Vanderbilt University

Java for Android (Coursera)

This MOOC teaches you how to program core features and classes from the Java programming language that are used in Android, which is the dominant platform for developing and deploying mobile device apps. In particular, this MOOC covers key Java programming language features that control the flow of execution through an app (such as Java’s various looping constructs and conditional statements), enable access to structured data (such as Java's built-in arrays and common classes in the Java Collections Framework, such as ArrayList and HashMap), group related operations and data into classes and interfaces (such as Java's primitive and user-defined types, fields, methods, generic parameters, and exceptions), customize the behavior of existing classes via inheritance and polymorphism (such as subclassing and overriding virtual methods).

Jun 16th 2026
4 Weeks
Learn to teach with automatic assessments (JuezLTI) Other Providers
C.I.F.P. Carlos III,Karlstad University,Bursa Il Milli Egitim Mudurlugu,INESTEC,Entornos de Formación - EDF

Learn to teach with automatic assessments (JuezLTI)

Come and join teachers around the world and learn how to teach with automatic programming assessments using JuezLTI. JuezLTI is a tool to support computer science teaching, and allows the automatic assessment of programming exercises, databases and markup languages. In this course you will learn how to setup the LTI tool in your LMS, how to create exercises or import them from Authorkit and discuss with other teachers around the world how to integrate it in your teaching. The course is aimed at teachers programming teachers in vocational schools or higher education institutions.

Nov 14th 2022
4 Weeks
Python Basics. Part 1 (LearnPython) Other Providers
LearnPython.com

Python Basics. Part 1 (LearnPython)

This course is a solid foundation in programming for beginners. Upon completion, you will be able to deepen your knowledge of Python or switch to any other programming language. There are 95 interactive exercises with examples and hints. After completing them, you’ll be able to use the syntax of Python and write your own functions. You’ll also discover what variables are, their purpose, and how to use them in programs. With an understanding of basic data structures, you’ll be ready to work with files and go further with programming for data analysis, development, or engineering.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
算法基础 (Coursera) Coursera
Peking University

算法基础 (Coursera)

本课程内容程涵盖枚举、二分、贪心、递归、深度优先搜索、广度优先搜索、动态规划等基本算法。通过大量的高强度的编程训练,提高动手能力,做到能较为熟练、完整、准确地实现自己设计的程序,为进一步学习其他计算机专业课程,或在其他专业领域运用计算机编程解决问题奠定良好的基础。

Jun 15th 2026
5-12 Weeks