Course summary
Become a confident and daring indie game developer. Learn to produce vibrant and engaging experiences for gamers on this dynamic online MA course. You’ll analyse the principles of the creative process, from early ideation and prototyping through to full production, release and post-release content. Supported by an experienced cross-disciplinary team of industry practitioners, including tutors working in professional game development roles, you’ll learn to integrate design tools, programming languages, game engines, specialist middleware and frameworks into your game development practice. You’ll explore current trends in indie games, funding opportunities and studio business models to see how you could start up your own. If you already have a business or game idea, this is your chance to get it off the ground by preparing pitch materials with help from tutors with a wealth of experience. This Indie Game Development master's course is delivered by Falmouth's Games Academy, which has been rated no.1 for game design in England by The Princeton Review, 2023. Why study this course at Falmouth?
- Apply the principles of design and creativity to generate novel experiences and own the Intellectual Property (IP) of any games you produce
- Develop digital and non-digital prototypes and playable games, exploring the use of games across a range of application domains, including gamification and serious games – learning to use industry-standard platforms and adapting to their technical constraints
- Use methods from business and analytics to better understand how people engage with indie games and games companies
- Collaborate across disciplinary boundaries and expand your professional networks at optional in-person events
Modules
The modules have been specifically designed to be studied in a non-linear order, with the order in which you’ll study the modules depending on when you begin the course. You will need to complete four 30-credit modules and one 60-credit Major Project (180 credits in total). All modules on the course are compulsory and must be passed in order to complete the award. Modules: Development Practice (30 credits) By devising a series of small-scale creative artefacts, you'll use your existing ideas about development practice and then experiment with new approaches to challenge these ideas. This will enable you to create a personal case study, from which you can define how to expand and enrich your practice. Beyond the personal case study, you'll gain a broader sense of the contexts in which these practices are applied across disciplines. Game Development (30 credits) You’ll develop and combine skills from the art, design and programming disciplines to create your own small indie game. This will help you understand how game development draws from many different disciplines and explain the different tasks involved in making games. By the end of the module you'll have made a game yourself and produced a report that explains the cross-disciplinary context for your creative process. Co-creative Design and Development Practice (30 credits) You'll work in a multi-disciplinary team on a problem-led creative project. This will typically, but not necessarily, be a small game or creative app. You'll work together to situate, design, implement and evaluate your creative artefact. With the support of a supervisor, you'll strategically manage scope, workflow, communication roles and responsibilities. At the end, you will have pitched and produced an original artefact, based on your own intellectual property, that clearly illustrates how you can engage an audience. Indie Game Start-Up (30 credits) In this module, you’ll design and prepare to launch a small business with a focus on indie game development. You’ll investigate and assess market opportunities in an area of your choice. This could involve exploring your audience, comparing how game businesses operate, contrasting business models, and considering how intellectual property can be managed. You’ll then decide which business opportunity your indie game is responding to and devise a business plan. You’ll consider branding, cash flow modelling, enterprise planning, incorporation, seeking further investment and interrogating routes to market. This will underpin further development and launch of your indie game. Final Major Project (60 credits) You’ll work on a major research and development project, either independently or with others. This will allow you to expand and consolidate your skills of devising, developing and executing an extended development project. You can build upon your projects from other modules or develop a new concept. You should finish the course with a polished project of a publishable quality. A supervisor will act as your mentor and adviser. If you’re planning to start your own business following this MA, your supervisor can direct you to professional services staff for business mentoring. As part of our process of continuous improvement, we routinely review course content to ensure that all our students benefit from a high-quality and rewarding academic experience. As such, there may be some changes made to your course which are not immediately reflected in the content displayed on our website. Any students affected will be informed of any changes made directly.
Assessment method
Assessment provides the course team with a means of offering tailored guidance alongside advice on how to progress knowledge and skills in key areas that relate to the course Learning Outcomes. The course team will identify your strengths and weaknesses as an individual and discuss them with you throughout your time on the course. Assessments are 100% coursework, submitted in an electronic format to the virtual learning environment, and designed to reflect professional practice. Assessment methods include: Projects Portfolios Pitches Papers
Entry requirements
An honours degree or Level 6 equivalent qualification is desirable. However, candidates without a degree or formal qualification are still encouraged to apply. If you'd like to discuss our entry requirements, speak to an advisor.
Fees and funding
Tuition fees
No fee information has been provided for this course
Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .
Additional fee information
No additional fees or cost information has been supplied for this course, please contact the provider directly.
Provider information
Falmouth University
Woodlane
Falmouth
TR11 4RH