MA Games and Playful Design

This module will provide you with a detailed approach to iterative game design. From basic design tools to conceptualising, prototyping and playtesting an array of games, you'll learn how to create compelling game mechanics within playable experiences. Exploring how emotion, sensory experience, interaction design, framing and purpose unfold through game design, designers will grapple with the tools which make play compelling. Additionally, this class looks at the different kind of possible models for play such as cooperation, skill, experience, chance, whimsy, performance, expression and simulation.   

In addition to learning game design, you'll learn how to talk about and understand games. From designers working with a formalised ludic approach to artists exploring liminoid spaces within play, the range of approaches will be explored. You'll leave this class with a clear understanding of the state of games and play as well as with a lexicon on how to discuss work within this space.

What can game design learn from other forms of expression? How can we create successful playable spaces? How we can see game design in a broad way which goes beyond the digital? This module is a hands-on, practical game design lab which focuses on deep play and delivering meaning through the craft of play spaces. It explores the following topics: 

• learning how to critically analyze other forms of expression and bring those findings to games
• brainstorming, pitching and storyboarding experience design and deep games
• using metaphor in order to craft game mechanics which explore a certain topic
• experience design for spatial environments leveraging technology in multiple contexts such as theatre and museum installations
• rapid prototyping of games and playable experiences
• user testing and iteration to improve play experiences  

Leveraging student-driven experimentation, this module will provide you with an opportunity to rapidly prototype and explore different aspects of play, to craft meaningful game spaces and to understand how to bring non-game experiences to your creative practice. 

This module will enable you to produce an independent research-led practice project in an area of your choosing. You'll be able to apply the skills learnt in your MA to a single, coherent body or work. 

 This module offers you a choice of either.  

• Completing a 12+ week internship with a relevant company.
• Completing a substantial self-directed project which demonstrates your ability to research, plan and execute an impactful body of work. 

If you choose the internship option, you are expected to respect any company NDAs / Secrets, and if in any doubt ensure your report is acceptable to your employer.

This module gives students an introduction to the art and craft of producing interactive fiction and delivering it on the Web. A historical overview of the field, from early examples of interactive narrative in theatre through books and film to computer-based interactive narrative, provides context for you to explore making your own works of interactive fiction, using engines for developing each of choice-based and parser-based narratives.

You will be expected to play through historical and contemporary works, critically assess them for effectiveness, and contribute to the playtesting and assessment of peers' work.

In this module, you'll learn foundational game technologies through practical in-engine work.  We'll explore the concepts underlying the functioning of a typical videogame and the operational pipeline to produce interactive content in a game engine with a minimal amount of coding. 

The creation of digital games as well as interactive experiences of various natures needs to be supported by an understanding of the technical aspects as well as by the knowledge of a typical development pipeline.

The development of an interactive experience doesn’t stop at coding. but it involves a series of visual tools and technology that work in concert towards the final outcome. Whatever the game engine is used in a studio or in a project, the underlying skills and concepts needed to create a satisfying product are common. 

This module focuses on the understanding of the visual tools used in game engines and on the use of them to create an interactive experience and aims to give students the tools for easily move to different creation environments, by making them experience concepts like cameras, composition, interactivity, animation and greyboxing. 

The first part of the module will introduce you to the general elements of a game engine. One side is exploring how we visualise and animate objects with a computer and the other is how we formalise these elements through the concept of classes, instances and components. You'll also understand what a game loop is, and the difference between frame-based and time-based approaches. At the same time, you'll work on simulated physics, sensors and collisions. 

The second part will give you an understanding of the visual tools of a typical game engine, ranging from the UI builder to camera management and animation systems, to simple shaders and VFXs with a particular focus on visual scripting. You'll learn how to integrate and control these aspects with minimal code, and which hybrid visual/coding approach is best suited for creating small games and prototypes. 

The lab part of the module offers in-lab challenges and tutorials finalized to the creation of a final small interactive experience based on a given brief. 

This module covers the basics of multi-platform game development, using one of the most popular game engines in the world: Unity. You'll learn the fundamentals of C#, which is used to implement everything from your game logic to character controllers. 

At the end of the module, you'll be able to create your very own game and publish it on different platforms.