Games Design

Entry requirements

An applicant will normally be considered for admission if they have achieved an educational level equivalent to an honours degree in either games design, animation, illustration, visual communication or graphic design or closely related subject, and present a portfolio of image-led work and project proposal.

The course aims to appeal to art and design graduates who are interested in expanding their experience by investigating emerging areas of games design practice. However, we will consider applicants who have graduated from other related disciplines, or who have relevant industry experience.

Students applying to this course will be expected to demonstrate a specific interest in this area of study and should have a commitment to engaging with games design.

Coding experience

Entry onto the course requires that you have some experience of coding. This maybe HTML/CSS/JavaScript or others such as actionscript, Java, C++ etc. Your level of experience can be quite low, as we will upskill applicants where needed, but you need to be comfortable with learning code and understand key concepts such as 'for loops' and 'conditional if' statements.

This level of experience would have been gained by studying an undergraduate multimedia course in art and design, pre-university qualifications in computer science, multimedia and/or web authoring or advanced self-taught practice of coding through free services such as codecademy.com.

Educational level may be demonstrated by:

• Honours degree (named above);
• Possession of equivalent qualifications;
• Prior experiential learning, the outcome of which can be demonstrated to be equivalent to formal qualifications otherwise required;
• Or a combination of formal qualifications and experiential learning which, taken together, can be demonstrated to be equivalent to formal qualifications otherwise required.

APEL (Accreditation of Prior Learning)

Applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered in exceptional cases. The course team will consider each application that demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by:

• Related academic or work experience
• The quality of the personal statement
• A strong academic or other professional reference
• OR a combination of these factors

Each application will be considered on its own merit but we cannot guarantee an offer in each case.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Rooted in experimental practice, MA Games Design will equip you with both the technical and critical skills to produce a broad portfolio of innovative game prototypes. MA Games Design critically examines the concept of play in relation to the practice of games design. You will produce playable prototype gaming experiences and use games design as a means to test critical ideas from broader culture. This course is taught at London College of Communication, at Elephant and Castle, part of University of the Arts London (UAL).

What can you expect?
• The course is particularly interested in how games design principles are being used more generally and how these ideas impact upon our increasingly digital culture.
• MA Games Design will enable you to understand and articulate the unique value of game experience to an increasingly interested design industry and allow you to understand the value of your game experience prototypes.
• Building on LCC's resources, in digital, time-based and interactive media, alongside printmaking, graphic design and visual communication, the course encourages experimental and reflective practice that echoes the cross media nature of the design, communication and media industries.
• The course also supports progression to research at MPhil/PhD level as well as to advanced self-directed experimental practice.

About London College of Communication
The communications sector is evolving fast. Through our world-leading community of teaching, research and industry partnerships, we enable our students to develop the critical, creative and technical excellence needed to succeed and to discover new possibilities and practices. Our Design, Media and Screen Schools produce experts and award-winners across virtual reality, journalism, photography, television and sound, graphic communication, games, design management – and more. The London College of Communication experience is all about learning by doing. Our students get their hands dirty and develop their skills through the exploration of our facilities and technical spaces. Students work on live briefs and commissions, with everything from independent start-ups and charities in Southwark, through to major global companies. Student designers, makers and innovators have worked with Nike, Penguin, the EU Commission, Colgate, Plan International, the National Trust, Nokia and Royal Mail, to name a few.

Please note this course is undergoing re-approval.

Information for international students

All classes are conducted in English. If English is not your first language, we strongly recommend you let us know your English language test score in your application. If you have booked a test or are awaiting your results, please indicate this in your application. When asked to upload a CV as part of your application, please include any information about your English test score.

IELTS 6.5 (or equivalent) is required, with a minimum of 5.5 in each of the four skills.

If your first language is not English, you can check you have achieved the correct IELTS level in English on the Language Requirements page.

Fees and funding

Learn more by visiting our funding page.