About Games Design in Canterbury Christ Church University

Games Design teaches you the key technical and creative skills needed to produce indie videogames for computer, mobile and console. You’ll have the opportunity to make analogue tabletop card and board games, and learn about game histories, creative careers and the role of play in contemporary society.

You will gain an in-depth knowledge of games-design tools (such as Game Maker Studio), design and development processes, aesthetics, and the relationships between industry, players and designers. You’ll have access to industry-standard software to produce a range of games, and have the opportunity to build a broad portfolio of games during your studies.

This new, production-focused course will be delivered in the School of Media, Art and Design’s excellent facilities, which boast interdisciplinary creative spaces enabling both individual and group-based work. The programme also uses laptops and mobile equipment wherever possible. You will be taught by games industry practitioners, led by Dr Alan Meades, an internationally renowned games researcher.

You will explore areas including:

• indie game creation from concept to release
• games design, art, sound, and narrative for games
• games design techniques and software applications
• how to prepare yourself for a successful career in games design.

Why games design

Games are a vital component of modern society. We play console and computer games to relax at home, mobile phone games and apps to fill the time during our daily commutes, and play tabletop and card games at social gatherings. Perhaps more than ever before games and play are important to contemporary life, and making games has become not only a form of creative expression but also a major industry.

Games Design develops your understanding of digital and analogue games through making and studying them. As you do this you’ll develop your creative and technical skills, including the use of software such as Game Maker Studio, Twine, Unity 3D and Unreal Engine, and design processes. You’ll apply these skills to make your own games in response to a variety of short-and-long creative briefs, some of these will be individual and others group-based. Through doing this you’ll create lots of different games, make the games that you want to make, and learn to work in an environment as close to the professional world as we can make it. While this is primarily a practical course you’ll also develop your research and writing skills, you’ll study games, learn of their histories, understand the ways that industry works, and the wider social, cultural and economic contexts.

Top reason to choose this course

If you are interested in studying games, understanding how and why they work and then using your skills to designing and make them, then this is the course for you. If you have an idea for a game that you want to make then this is the course for you. If you have ideas for innovative and creative games, indie games that do and say something different, then this is the course for you. If you can see that games can be applied to a wide range of different situations – from entertainment to art, and marketing, then this is the course for you.

Work Experience

Employment skills are central to the Games Design curriculum, with the Creative Career module pathway running through all years, and bringing together games designers, animators and digital media practitioners. The approach to games, making them for a wide range of sectors, uses and purposes, and the development of a portfolio of outward-facing work, also assists students with employability.

Academic qualification equivalents:

• Successful completion of standard 12 th with 60% average and one further year of study

English language requirements (one of the below):

• IELTS         :        6.0, with no less than 6.0 in Writing and no less than 5.5 in Reading, Speaking and Listening.
• TOEFL        :       Total minimum score of 80, with at least 19 in reading, writing and listening.
• PTE            :        overall score of 50 and no PTE communicative skills score below 42

Canterbury Christ Church University Highlights

Canterbury Christ Church University Tuition fee

Canterbury Christ Church University Living Cost

• The weekly living cost for an international student staying at a residential hall/flat/homestay is 384.50 NZD, 305.75 NZD, and 360 NZD, respectively.
• Application deadline for accommodation: December 1 (February intake); May 1 (June intake).