Program Overview

MA Games and Playful Design

Overview

This brave games Masters focusing on game design explores the ways that games are used in the creative arts to engage conversation, inspire personal expression, and explore our world.

Why Study MA Games and Playful Design at Goldsmiths

• This degree will teach you how to use game design to develop aesthetic awareness and create meaningful experiences.
• With technology and gaming becoming part of our everyday lives, the industry has adapted to use games to tell stories, generate knowledge, and educate the public.
• Throughout this degree, you'll learn how to build compelling mechanics, craft innovative narratives, and develop immersive playable environments.
• We'll encourage you to push games into new territories and intellectual domains.
• You'll explore the freedom of the gaming industry, from putting players in immersive augmented worlds to telling transformational personal narratives, these new experiences are redefining the rules of play.
• You'll be part of a supportive community of game creators, working on your own or teaming up with fellow students from other games and art programmes.
• You'll benefit from a vibrant hands-on environment led by lecturers with solid experience in the games industry and other experience design industries.
• You'll have access to our specialist lab facilities, as well as a large library of video and board games.
• You'll explore games in a broad way, from industry-oriented development to VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), building your own alternative controllers, and creating large-scale installations or immersive theatre experiences.
• You'll be able to participate in regular game jams and industry events on campus.
• We'll mentor you to help you find your voice and place as a game and experience designer, setting you up with the skills to shape your career, whether as an independent studio owner or elsewhere in the games industry.

Length

• 1 year full-time
• 2 years part-time

Entry Requirements

• You should have an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard with an interest in and capability for working in interdisciplinary contexts using technology.
• In exceptional circumstances, outstanding practitioners or individuals with strong commercial experience may be considered.

Fees

• Home - full-time: £13,600
• Home - part-time: £6,800
• International - full-time: £20,000

Department

• Computing

What You'll Study

• Compulsory modules:
  • Approaches to Play 1 (15 credits)
  • Games Anatomy (15 credits)
  • Approaches to Play 2 (15 credits)
  • Interactive Narrative and Digital Storytelling (15 credits)
  • Final Project in Games and Playful Design (60 credits)
• Optional modules:
  • Visual Game Development (15 credits)
  • Games Programming 1 (15 credits)
  • Programming for Artists and Designers (15 credits)
  • Modelling and Animation 1 (15 credits)
  • History of Computer Games, Art and Animation (15 credits)
  • Critical AI (15 credits)
  • Data and Machine Learning for Artistic Practice (15 credits)
  • Extended Reality for Creative Practice (15 credits)
  • Modelling and Animation 2 (15 credits)
  • Games Programming 2 (15 credits)
  • Alternative Game Controller Design (15 credits)
  • Audio Experience for Games (15 credits)
  • Game Development (15 credits)
  • Escape Room Design and Immersive Theatre (15 credits)
  • Motion Capture Techniques and Digital Embodiment (15 credits)
  • Applied AI for Industry (15 credits)

Teaching and Assessment

• Taught sessions and lectures provide overviews of themes, which you are encouraged to complement with intensive reading for presentation and discussion at seminars.
• Assessments build on lectures and seminars so you are expected to attend all taught sessions to build knowledge and your own understanding of your chosen discipline.
• All assessed work is accompanied by some form of feedback to ensure that your work is on the right track.

Careers

• The degree aims to prepare students to access the game industry, both in the AAA and in the independent sectors, as game designers.
• It also gives extensive access to companies working in all sorts of interactive entertainment, as a game designer and professional expert in using interactivity for designing immersive experiences.
• In addition, the degree allows students to start their own game studio or related activity with a clear and defined path.
• In the mid-long term, students who have successfully taken the degree can aspire to become creative directors, both in games and in other interactive experiences.

Industry Links

• We have a strong network of games companies and studios and have succeeded in placing a large number of students, the majority of which have gone on to permanent jobs in the organisation.
• In additional to paid commercial placement, we offer the option of projects that are sponsored and co-supervised by non-profit organisations or other academic departments or institutions.
• We already have existing links with many of these independent companies. These include Niantic, Nexus, Six to Start, PlayLab London, Matheson Marcault, Media Molecule, Punchdrunk, Electric Square, Chorus, Frontier, Ubisoft, Payload Studios, Unit 9, Preloaded.
• We also have links with London and international games events such as Now Play This, Indiecade, Wild Rumpus, A MAZE, Resonate, Creative Coast, Game City, Control.
• Finally, we have links to media outlets and industry affiliations including Vice, Motherboard, Kill Screen, Polygon, Gamasutra, Rock, Paper Shotgun, Women in Games, Code Liberation Foundation, Geeks for Equality, Gaymer X, Make Magazine, Hackaday, Facets Conference, Unity 3D, UKIE, V&A, Sony, Microsoft, The Guardian, and The BBC.