Here are some of the digital resources available via the library at CCCU. You will find information about study skills, e-books, recommended journals, databases and websites.

Welcome to our guide to library resources for Games Design students. As the Learning and Research Librarian for Creative Arts and Industries, I am here to support you in your learning and assignments.

Learning & Research Librarian for Creative Arts and Industries

The library purchases thousands of e-books which you can access both at home and on campus.

These are available via Library Search the university’s online digital discovery tool and you can access these using your university log in.

You can search for e-books either by author/title or by topic. Limit your results in the left-hand pane of the search screen to e-books and click on the link to CCCU e-book to download or read online.

You’ll find we have some amazing titles such as:

  • Koster, R. (2013) A theory of fun for game design
  • Fullerton, T. (2018) Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games
  • Heussen, T. (2015) The game narrative toolbox
  • Roger, S. (2014) Level Up! The guide to great video game design.

Journals are regular publications and include articles written by different authors on their specific research. These can be challenging to read; however, they are great for finding up-to-date information for your literature reviews and for learning about current developments in your field.

You can find journal articles online via LibrarySearch . Try searching for a key word or phrase connected with your research topic e.g. “games design” or “video game narrative”. See our LibrarySearch quick guide for more information.

There are also many journal articles freely available online. Here are some of the best-known games design journals.

  • ActaLudica International journal of game studies.
  • Game journal of strategic interaction, game theory and decision making
  • Gamenvironments related to video games/gaming and religion, culture, and society.
  • Game Studies – the international journal of computer game research.
  • International Journal of Serious Games
  • Journal of Games Criticism a focus on influencing gamer culture, the design and writing of video games, and the social understanding of video games and video games criticism.
  • Journal of Games, Self and Society highlights work focused on how games, game design, and gameplay contribute to a deeper understanding of learning, health, and humanity.
  • Press Start open access, peer-reviewed student journal that publishes the best undergraduate and (post)graduate research from across the multidisciplinary subject of Game Studies.
  • ToDiGRA – Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association.
  • Well Played – a journal on video games, value and meaning.
  • Computer games can be borrowed for 7 days and are shelved with the games design books at classmark 794.8 on the 3rd floor towards the front of the building.
  • To locate a game on LibrarySearch, search by individual title, ‘Nintendo Switch’ or ‘PlayStation 4’. You can also search the whole collection by using a blank search and selecting ‘Computer Games Collection’ within the ‘location’ filter on the left side of the LibrarySearch homepage.
  • You can borrow and return computer games by using the self-issue and return machines.

Databases are collections of journal articles themed on particular subjects. The following will be useful for games design students.

You can find them via Library Search in the Find Databases A-Z section.

ACM Digital Library – Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) publications, including journals, conference proceedings, technical magazines, newsletters and books.

Box of Broadcasts - BoB is an online off-air TV and radio service provided by the British Universities Film & Video Council (BUFVC) for UK higher and further education institutions. Anyone from CCCU can use BoB to watch programmes from the archive, create clips for embedding in Blackboard and search for forthcoming programmes to record by title or keyword. Box of Broadcasts guide.

Engineering Village – Search several engineering databases with multiple search options, with journals, standards, conference proceedings, and more.

Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive - Video Games (ProQuest) - This collection consists of the backfiles of more than 40 gaming magazines from the 1980s through to 2020. These titles cover a wide variety of consoles and platforms and aspects of the industry.

IEL Online (IEEE Xplore) – This database covers approximately one third of the world’s current literature on communications and computer science. It contains articles from IEEE Transactions on Games a journal which publishes original high-quality articles covering scientific, technical, and engineering aspects of games. You can also read and download conference papers from the International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games) and the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games, CIG.

JSTOR – A full-text archive of core scholarly journals, dating from the first issue up until two to five years ago. Subject coverage includes Arts and Sciences.

Kanopy - Access to a large, curated catalogue of over 30,000 educational documentaries and classic films from leading producers. Kanopy guide.

ScienceDirect - Searches across 2,500 peer-reviewed titles – or over 9.5 million articles. Useful for articles about mathematics, software, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence (AI), signal processing and forensic computing.

  • Artnatomya facial expression tool for artists and animators.
  • Concept Art World concept art blog, news and directory for artists, illustrators and designers working in film, game and animation.
  • Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) is the association for academics and professionals who research digital games and associated phenomena.
  • Frontiers an open science platform that includes games-related research.
  • Game Developer the art and business of making games.
  • Games Design Vault inspirational talks and slides from the influencers of the games industry.
  • Games Industry Biz news items and blog posts.
  • Game Studies a non-profit, open-access, cross-disciplinary journal dedicated to games research, web-published several times a year.
  • Iamag tutorials and video gallery for digital artists
  • MDPI an open science platform that includes games-related research.
  • Polycount a community & resource for professional, hobbyist, and aspiring video game artists.
  • ScreenSkills is the industry-led skills body for the screen industries, working across the UK to ensure that film, television, VFX (visual effects), animation and games have the skills and talent they need.

The university library has books on Game Design on the 1st and 3rd floors of Augustine House. Here are suggestions of classmarks (the numbers on the spines of the books) where you will find games design books:

  • 005-006 – Computer graphics and software
  • 302.23 – Sociology of games
  • 338.477948 – Games industry
  • 355.48 – War games
  • 621.3893 – Game audio
  • 781.54 – Games music
  • 793 – Aesthetics of play and games
  • 794.8 – Video games – design, history and criticism

To find a book, use LibrarySearch either by typing in words from a title or a topic. Once you have found a book, remember to check if it is available and if it is a 7-day loan or 4-week loan. This is important as the shorter loan books are on the open shelves in the middle of each floor and the 4 week loans are in the moving shelves.

Lynsey Blandford
Learning and Research Librarian