Course summary

Our MA Games Design with Integrated International Pre-Masters is a year-long preparatory course of study to ready you for your Master’s in the UK, developing your English speaking and writing together with your specialist skills, research acumen and confidence in working autonomously. Explore different perspectives on game-play, develop compelling and exciting new work and expand your understanding of the games of tomorrow on UCA's MA Games Design degree course. This course will challenge you to investigate the context of contemporary games and games culture and examine audience engagement, while also considering games in other contexts. This includes Applied Games (also known as Serious Games), as well as research, education and healthcare, together with how games can inform other creative disciplines like film and architecture. We want you to apply your skills beyond just creating entertainment, to explore other areas such as avant-garde and games with a purpose. You'll expand your knowledge of game mechanics of interaction and immersion, employ new technologies and creative approaches (such as Expanded Reality - XR), and build on your existing digital design and technical skills. We will also encourage you to take part in UCA Game Jams and to attend external events and festivals. You will be taught in outstanding studios, with dedicated industry hardware and software. You will also have access to VR development facilities, allowing your games to be deployed to a variety of platforms, and have access to our unique library of consoles, PCs, board and card games. Delivering the course is a team of lecturers with experience in games development and related creative and research fields. You will also benefit from talks by visiting lecturers from high-profile gaming companies and backgrounds. The South East of England, where UCA Farnham is located, is home to a significant proportion of the UK games industry – including Rocksteady Studios, Supermassive Games, EA, Rebellion, Fireproof Games, nDreams, Two Point Studios, Gears For Breakfast, Supergonk, Failbetter Games and Weather Factory – offering many opportunities for off-site visits and trips, games networking events and other cross-course activities. The campus is only 20 minutes away from Guildford – dubbed the Hollywood of computer games – and just 55 minutes from London – a stone's throw from two of the three largest games industry hubs in the UK, as well as up-and-coming Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) industry. Studying so close to Guildford and London will also give you access to the UK’s largest technology incubation and games industry start-ups.