Games Technology BSc (Hons)

This year will take you through fundamental games design processes and the technical foundations of 2D and 3D programming, understanding games engines, as well as planning and creating games. You’ll share theoretical units with students on the Games Arts course.

Games Design
You’ll be introduced to the key digital art and design skills needed to complement your technical skills, with which you’ll transform your research and develop ideas into functional assets for games. You'll learn how to approach problems creatively using a range of sources for reference and inspiration.

Games Programming
Specific to this course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of working in Unreal Engine, using Blueprints, the basics of C++ programming and gain a solid grounding in gaming systems and platforms, the system architecture of these platforms and the similarities between them.

You'll be introduced to fundamental mathematics for computing before moving on to Procedural and Object-Orientated Programming. You'll also demonstrate your technical understanding through this unit by producing simple games.

Interaction
Through the fundamental concepts of gameplay, computer games design, and computer games scripting and C# coding using the Unity games engine, you’ll learn about how games interact with users.

Introduction to Video Game Studies: Image, Medium and Culture 
This unit introduces you to a range of key concepts central to developing an understanding of video games and the history of their theorisation. Exploring influential video game examples and relevant theoretical and critical writings, you will analyse the cultural and artistic contexts in which the medium has been theorised, produced and played. You will also become familiar with the technological developments and conceptual transformations, before and after the so called digital shift, establishing a firm understanding of the technical and intellectual changes that have influenced the development of the video game as a medium.

Year two will build upon your planning, design, asset creation and prototyping skills. You’ll start to specialise in a defined area, and continue to undertake shared units with students on the Games Arts course.

As the course progresses, you’ll develop your practical skills further in the programming language C++, alongside contextual studies. 

Games System Design
Through this unit you will further build on your knowledge of digital systems and programming skills. Specifically, you will be introduced to C++, gaining understanding of its key concepts and features and demonstrating your understanding in response to briefs. Complementing the explicitly technical focus of this unit you’ll be encouraged to be creative – your work may be entrepreneurial or speculative, you might look beyond gaming for entertainment to areas like ‘Serious/ Applied Games’, ‘Games as Social Political Comment’ or ‘Games as Art’. 

Games Production
Contemporary games production practices and workflows are crucial to the success of a game. You’ll learn how to work in small dev teams, iterate and develop to milestones, while creating high-quality work. You’ll learn the process of making a game environment and the roles of those involved, specifically exploring mechanics, environment production techniques and workflows. From there, you’ll work in groups to create a prototype – in an iterative fashion as you would in contemporary game production practice.

You’ll also work in a group to successfully pitch a game concept, and develop a prototype or ‘vertical slice’. Each member of your group will need to specialise in a specific area appropriate to their skills and interests, however all members should be involved in the production.

Gaming in Contemporary Culture
You’ll critically examine the position of computer games and gamers within culture and society, exploring gaming's relationship to gender, ethnicity, conflict and capital. You’ll also discuss ludology and its attendant concepts, including immersion, procedural rhetoric and cyber-individualism.

Your third year will introduce you to the economics and management of the industry, as well as copyright, patents and legal concerns, and also give you the opportunity to showcase your own learning with your dissertation, pre-production project and final games’ prototypes.

Final Major Project: Pre-production
This extended period of study allows you to develop a significant body of work either individually or in a group that demonstrates your skills, interests and your aspiration for your future role within the games industry. You'll begin this unit by developing a project proposal through which you will define the concept, scope, audience, and purpose of your Final Major Project, you will present this through a pitch to your tutors and peers. Alongside this proposal you will produce a detailed production schedule committing to project milestones.

Final Major Project
From the work you have undertaken in the previous unit, you’ll produce a fully resolved body of work, either individually or as part of a team. It should demonstrate your creativity, skill, knowledge and understanding of recognised games industry practices and pipelines producing outcomes to a professional standard.

Thesis
You'll undertake a substantial period of sustained, individually negotiated research on a subject related to the contextual and/ or theoretical concerns of your discipline or chosen area of practice, towards the provision of structured written argument.

Taking advantage of our proximity to the UK’s largest games hubs, our course connects directly with some of the best-known names in the industry, including:

• Supermassive Games
• EA
• Sony
• Creative Assembly
• Supergonk
• Two Point Studios
• Zappar
• Hangar 13
• Atom Republic
• Rebellion
• Miniclip

We also regularly welcome input from active industry practitioners, who can offer expert advice and guidance to students about the realities of working in the computer games market.

The UK games industry is the fifth largest in the world, with plentiful opportunities, particularly in London and the South East where almost half the market is based. According to the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment, the games industry grew by 26 per cent between 2017 and 2018, and 82 per cent of games companies are looking to expand their workforce.

This course is uniquely focused towards producing graduates who are steering their careers towards being a Technical Artist working between both the artists, designers and programming teams.