Our approach to teaching has been specifically designed to support students who are keen to make games, but who haven’t yet built the full range of technical and creative skills required. We’ll teach you these skills with a focus on collaboration and team projects. In the first semester of each year, you’ll learn a variety of practical development skills (perhaps in GameMaker, Unity, Unreal, 3D modelling and animation, 2D animation, narrative, theory, and industry production skills – dependent on the modules you select), and then in the second semester, you’ll apply these skills to make a game (or series of games). By teaching this way you’ll get a chance to learn the skills and then apply them practically to make several projects, and in doing so you’ll develop many transferrable skills that are in demand for employment in games but also a wide range of related industries. Our students quickly become confident in developing and articulating ideas, forming and managing teams to complete projects, and then showing these games to the industry and public at the many different game expos and industry events that we take part in. Our students have demoed their games at A.MAZE Berlin, EGX Rezzed, UK GAMES EXPO, and many other regional events. All of our students are UKIE members, giving them access to essential industry information and support, and we are a Tranzfuser local hub, meaning that we support students in partnership with industry to follow their dreams to start up new games studios.

Our staff are passionate about games, passionate about supporting students, and passionate about the potential of your game project ideas. The staff and students on the degree are part of a wider community of creative practitioners in the School of Creative Arts and Industries that includes performers, composers, producers, game designers, photographers, and dancers, and we hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunity to gain inspiration from this diverse group to help expand and enhance your own creative practice.

You can see some student work from the School here: School of Creative Arts and Industries

Join us on Twitter @CCCU_games and Instagram @cccu_games

We're always keen to hear from potential students, please do get in touch if you have any questions about the course, want to visit one of our many open-day events, or want to tell us about the cool things that you're working on and the things you want to make in future.

While there are lots of things you can read to help prepare for our course (see below) there are many other important things you can do.

We'd recommend that before you begin the course you should make sure that you are aware of lots of different types of games. As you move from being a player to a maker you will need to draw upon an understanding of different game types, mechanics, play loops, and pleasures. The best way to do this is to set yourself a challenge to learn about a new game each day, and to vary the games enormously. We'd recommend sites like itch.io that offer some really interesting indie games at low or no cost, and where you're likely to find genre-defying ideas and designs. Services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus also offer low-cost ways to sample games. The point is to play a game until you understand how you think it works, what you like about it, and how it makes you feel... and then move onto another game. If you don't have access to these services then watching YouTube videos about games is almost as good, and make sure not to only look at video games, but play board games, card games, and roleplaying games whenever you get the chance. This approach to learning about games is really important preparation for the course - and it is great fun!

There are a lot of books and online resources about game design out there, and this in itself can be a bit of a challenge. Therefore, we’d suggest that you take a look (and a listen) to the following YouTube video channels and podcasts, these talk about games in the way that we will on the Games Design course, and they’re also really interesting!

• Extra Credits YouTube Channel
• Game Maker’s Toolkit YouTube Channel
• Designer Notes Podcast
• Shaun Spaulding’s GameMaker Tutorials

You might be interested in reading Dr Alan Meades' latest game studies book published with MIT Press, Arcade Britannia (you can read it freely on MIT Press' website or it is available at all good bookshops), which tells the interesting history of the development of the British amusement arcade industry. Our staff are actively involved in research and practice.

Lastly, we'd encourage you to keep up your creative practice before coming to university. Take time to design, write, program, draw, sing, dance... whatever you enjoy making and doing. This passion for making things is essential and when combined with knowing about games and understanding the ideas and theories behind them, is a brilliant and helpful combination! If you do this you'll absolutely hit the ground running!

It is useful to note that the University Bookshop offers 10% discount on most titles in print and have some price-beating book bundles. They also price match Amazon on core texts recommended in the module handbooks you will receive when you start in September.