Welcome to your Computer Games Design course

Welcome to University of Staffordshire

We know you're already passionate about your subject, which is why we're excited you've chosen University of Staffordshire as the place to turn possibility into reality.

To give you an insight into what life as a Computer Games Design student is like, your course leaders have prepared introductions to the course and further activities.

Welcome to the MSc Games Design Course at Staffordshire University! We are thrilled to have you join our community of designers and we’re excited to get started with the academic year. Let’s cover some information that you’ll find useful before starting.

Course delivery

The academic year is comprised of 4-blocks of learning. Each block is 9-weeks long. You can expect to be scheduled for 14-hours of contact throughout the week for teaching block 1 and 2, and slightly less for 3 and 4 due to you having your masters project to work on and supervision sessions. This is usually timetabled over 3-4 days.

During teaching block 1 and 2 you will have three total modules, two of these will be timetabled for 6 hours of contact per-module, while the third module will be 2 hours of contact. Throughout the year you will study a total of 7 modules.

You will be taught through a combination of lectures, workshops, and development practical sessions. You will be taught in first-class learning spaces throughout your course.

Your course will provide you with opportunities to engage with formative modules and engagement activities to help us to gauge your understanding of your subject informally before you complete the formal assessments.

There is a formal or ‘summative’ assessment at the end of each module. This includes a range of coursework assessments, practical portfolio work, development logbooks, written reports, presentations, and independent supervised projects. The grades from formal assessments count towards your module mark, and ultimately to your degree classification.

As master’s students you’ll often be expected to conduct a significant amount of independent learning based on course content, assessment goals, but also based on furthering your own specialisms. This is what we refer to as self-managed study time. Assignments are broken up into milestones throughout the semesters.

Semester one activities

In your first few weeks at university, you will be engaging on the following modules:

Gameplay System Design

In this module you will explore how games are constructed of numerous connected systems, you will gain an understanding of how-to best approach designing these systems. In the first few weeks of the module, you will begin to design a progression system.

Advanced Game Design and Research

In this module you will further develop your skills as a designer through the creation of novel and cutting-edge game design experiences, you will then conduct evaluations on the experiences with players to better understand the impact of your designs.

Project Management & Research Methods

In this module you will begin to develope your scholarship and research skills in the context of a project unique to your own specialisms. In the first half of this module, you will devise a research question and design a small game experience that will allow you to answer the research question.

Pre-learning

Good YouTube channels for game design content:

Game Makers Toolkit: https://www.youtube.com/@GMTK
Game Developers Conference: https://www.youtube.com/@Gdconf
AI and Games: https://www.youtube.com/@AIandGames
Design Doc: https://www.youtube.com/@DesignDoc

You might find these books useful too:

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop: A playcentric approach to creating innovative games. CRC press.
Schell, J., 2019. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. CRC Press, 3rd Ed.

It is recommended to brush up on Unreal Engine / Unity their official learning resources are excellent, but there is also a wealth of content available online:

If you are looking for an excuse to buy some games, here’s one. It would be a great idea for you to experience as many types of games as possible to help build up your reference how games are designed and constructed. Where possible play and analyse games outside the genres you typically play.

Equipment and software

Software

You can download wide range of software from the University free of charge once you have enrolled.

We’ll be using the following software on all our awards. Much of the software you’ll be using is free or heavily discounted to students with a valid University e-mail address. The key software is listed below with free alternatives suggested at the bottom:

Autodesk Suite (Including: 3ds Max, Maya, Motionbuilder) - https://www.autodesk.com/education/home

Adobe Photoshop, Premiere & After Effect - https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/plans.html?plan=edu&promoid=KTROQ

Microsoft Office -  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office
Unreal Engine  5 - https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/download
Unity - https://unity.com/download
Machinations - https://machinations.io/

The above packages are available in our labs, but if you wish to have access to them on your own PC the recommended specification is below. 

Suggested Hardware Specifications

Minimum 8GB RAM, recommended 32 GB RAM
Minimum i7-4790k5 Intel CPU, recommended i7-8700k Intel CPU
Minimum NVidia nVidia GTX 1060, / 2080 recommend RTX2080 for Ray- Tracing projects
Minimum 1 TB HDD, recommended 512TB SSD with 1TB HDD

Trips and activities

During the academic year SUGI (the games department) runs trips and events to numerous conferences and gaming conventions.

Additionally, as master’s students throughout your modules you will be encouraged and mentored to submit to competitions and conferences. We fund a number of students to attend these each year.

Groups and societies

There are multiple clubs and societies at Staffordshire University.

The Games Dev society was set up by 3 former students now well established in industry. Get critique and support for your projects and work during dev sessions and through our discord server with 1000+ gaming students and Industry already registered - https://x.com/StaffsGDS

All groups and societies

Meet the team

Daniel Webster

Senior Lecturer

Dan is a highly experienced 3D artist with professional skills in Character, Environment, Vehicular modelling, and Animation for the Games industry.

Daniel's profile

Dr Kieran Hicks

Course Director

Dr Kieran Hicks is a game design lecturer, they are the director of the DEMI research centre. Their research explores games from user-based and design-based lenses, using games as a tool to engage diverse groups in beneficial activity.

Kieran's profile

What to expect on Welcome Week

We're so excited for you to join us on campus and to welcome you to where you matter. During your welcome week you'll be able to meet our friendly student services teams, connect with new friends, join societies, explore on-campus venues attend club nights and much more.