Masters in Game Designing in UK

Take your skills to the next level with MA Game Design. Refine 3D modelling, 2D art and animation skills, level design and gameplay coding. Games industry experts will guide you through aspects of game design and development, game theory, and industrial contexts. You will develop your portfolio, and in the final module, work as a team to produce and ship a fully-fledged game.

MA Game Design provides an explorative insight into creating videogames. Not only will students hone the craft of developing their own videogames, but also learn more about the dynamic medium itself. Combining practice and theory to result in a balanced approach to foster imaginative and creative experiences.

Analyse the principles of the creative process, from ideation and design through to delivery and dissemination. Integrate design tools, programming languages, game engines, as well as specialist middleware and frameworks into your game development practice.

Explore business models used by indie games studios to see how you could start up your own. And, if you already have a business idea, get it off the ground with help from a mentor.

This MA is tailored for people who want to start a career in the game industry. One of the only program in the UK taught by actual game developers, it will teach you game design, art & animation, and game programming, and has a strong focus on entrepreneurship and business.

As a fast-growing 150-billion-dollar business, the game industry offers countless professional opportunities. The MA Computer Games: Art & Design is right for you if you want to make game development a sustainable career and to work in this creative and rewarding industry. 

This is also one of the only program taught by actual game developers, designers, and artists with years of experience in the game industry.

Manchester has been identified as one of the major games industry hubs outside of London* (*source: 'A Map of the UK', Nesta, 2020). As home to organisations such as Gameopolis, the city is a driving force for building and coordinating the future of the games industry.

With our MSc in Computer Games Development, you’ll gain the skills required for an exciting career within this growing industry, both here in Manchester and beyond. You’ll learn the core essentials of programming for games and you’ll conduct playtesting sessions and user research to ensure that your games are fun, impactful, and that they effectively reach their target audience. 

You will also complete a masters project. While you’ll have plenty of support along the way, it’s a solo research project designed to develop confidence, autonomy and self-sufficiency – qualities that can take you far in the workplace. 

By the time you complete your masters, you’ll not only have the technical knowledge, you’ll also have gained key employability skills such as team working, communication, project management and negotiation skills. With the mentorship of passionate games-focused staff at Manchester Met, you will be able to build a refined and diverse portfolio, to help you work towards securing a job in the games industry.

This practical programme allows you to develop strong creative design capabilities as well as scientific and engineering knowledge and skills. Our students don’t just apply their skills and knowledge to solve problems. They are creative designers, who step back and question why a problem exists and discover users that have been overlooked.

The programme is built around the core Design Studio modules – tutorial-style sessions where you are encouraged to think and develop as an independent designer, supported by visiting professionals.

These modules will be supported by fundamental engineering concepts and skills taught through our core engineering and materials modules such as ‘Engineering Design’ and ‘Designing for Manufacture’. Our modern programmes will also expand the computational and creative coding confidence of our students with new modules including ‘Computational Mathematical Modelling’, ‘Arts Application Programming’ and ‘Interactive Media Design & Production’.

Students who choose to take the MEng degree will carry out a further ambitious individual project in the fourth year, experiencing product development from inception to realisation. You’ll also take advanced engineering and materials modules that provide background knowledge for the project.

We've recently undertaken a review of our programmes to ensure that they will prepare you for life beyond 2030 and ensure they reflect the global challenges facing both our society and your future as engineers. We have developed the modules we offer in consultation with our students, staff and industry to enhance your student experience and graduate employability.

We have mapped the modules in our programmes to a range of attributes that we would like our students to attain, within the areas of creativity, resilience, communication and professional practice in order to produce well-rounded, interested and highly employable graduates. This not only ensures that students develop the required technical knowledge and understanding as they progress through their degree, but also gives us the confidence that students will graduate with skills they can apply to a range of future careers or higher-level study.

You will develop the skills and knowledge required to develop computer game software and you will gain an international perspective on advancements in computer game development.

Explore different aspects of computing science – such as games design, bioinformatics, and security – in your first two years.

You'll spend a year on an accredited, paid industrial placement between Stages 2 and 3.

Study specialist modules in Stage 3, such as gaming simulations and computer games development.

Take modules from our MSc degree in Computer Game Engineering in Stage 4 to develop a deep understanding of game engineering.

Accredited by the BCS, this four-year Master of Computing in Computer Games Development is the highest award for undergraduate study in computing and is designed for more able students. Combining our BSc (Hons) Computer Games Development degree with Master's level material, it allows you to further distinguish yourself with an advanced set of professional and technical skills. 

USW's MComp Computer Games Development course offers a skill-set that will help you gain employment as a game programmer. You could find yourself at the heart of the game development process, from writing code, testing it and fixing bugs, to producing tools for other members of the team to use. Whether you're interested in artificial intelligence, game physics or cross- platform graphics rendering, the computer games industry is a thriving sector that offers many opportunities to work with publishers, independent studios or middleware producers.

This Games Development course places an emphasis on programming for computer games, but it also prepares you for a career in software development, and is your first step towards a rewarding career in the creative industries. You'll learn by doing, making use of high-performance computers and working individually and in teams to produce games to tight deadlines. You'll work on real problems that will prepare you for employment, and develop key skills to support lifelong learning.

Our MA Games Design (with optional Professional Placement) course has been designed with industry in mind. It will give you the opportunity to specialize in an area of Games Design, even if your specialism is to be a one-person team and do it all!

This degree programme offers you a dynamic and friendly creative environment where you are encouraged and inspired to play, learn and think creatively. Games Design covers the conceptual, visual and digital development of games, and you will be given an industry perspective that will equip you to seek employment in the trade.

From the start of the course, you will be exploring and developing ideas and concepts relating to games and are actively encouraged to play, to question the nature of your specialism and express the ideas formulated through personal project work.

Developed by industry veterans this Master’s in Game Development provides you with the skills you need to gain an edge in the competitive world of videogame development. Your mentors have a combined experience of more than 30 years in the games industry, having worked on AAA franchises including Crysis, Star Wars: Battlefront, Prey, Sniper Elite, Aliens vs. Predator and Bioshock.

Building on your existing skills in art, programming or games design – this course offers you the flexibility to choose the topics that interest you and will help you specialise within a particular field. Topics include technical art, procedural generation algorithms, photogrammetry, environment design, machine learning, data analytics, game theory and design

This course, one of a suite of digital media courses, enables you to study professional digital media practice in a microstudio environment with a focus on the design skills necessary for the field of games development. Through a student-centred, project-based curriculum, you will work as a games designer to develop your specialist skills while working as part of an interdisciplinary team with students from across the full programme.

• This course has been developed in consultation with our industry panel, and we are an educational partner of Sony Interactive Entertainment through PlayStation First. We are also an active member of TIGA, the games industry's representative body.
• This course has been designed to utilise the best digital media expertise and resources from across the University, and will prepare you for employment in the digital media industry, where teams of specialists work together to develop and author innovative digital media projects. 

The MComp Games Computing is a four-year degree programme designed to enhance and extend the BSc (Hons) programme with an additional year of Master's level study. It provides the opportunity to study a range of modules in more detail and to complete a substantive project in an area of specific personal interest. Studying at Master's level can enable students to both deepen and broaden their knowledge and understanding.

Are you ready to take your game development skills and knowledge of computers to the next level? An MSc Computer Games Technology degree course is an important next step towards a rewarding career in one of the world's most exciting creative industries.

The course is project-based, so you'll define the focus and scope of your own work, while building your technological expertise. You'll also get plenty of hands-on experience designing, creating and managing your own research study.

When you graduate, you'll have all the tools you need to put your programming skills to work in both games, and other creative industries.

If you too are interested in a career in games design, our brand new Master of Design (MDes) programme in Games Design and Development allows you to explore your own creativity, develop game ideas, and launch your own games. Computer Science at Heriot-Watt is ranked 6th in Scotland by The Complete University league tables (2021).

The School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences is delighted to introduce a new Master of Design (MDes) programme in Games Design and Development, available for 2019 entry. This innovative programme provides students with a unique opportunity to design and develop their own computer game to the highest industry standards while gaining hands-on experience with the product lifecycle, gathering technical and professional skills, and further practical entrepreneurship knowledge. It is the perfect stepping stone to enable students to smoothly transition to design and programming roles in the games industry.