Games Design

Games design is one of the most complex creative disciplines to have emerged in the last half-century. It involves conceiving and constructing interactive experiences: building the rules, systems, narrative, visual design, and mechanics that together produce compelling gameplay. Unlike purely passive media, games must be designed to respond to the player, and understanding how to create that feedback loop in ways that are satisfying, meaningful, and technically functional requires an unusual combination of creative, analytical, and practical skills.

At the University of Northampton, this four-year, full-time programme begins with a foundation year, which builds the creative and technical foundations you need before progressing to the main degree. The foundation year is designed to ensure that students from a range of backgrounds can develop a solid grounding in design thinking, digital tools, and the conceptual frameworks of games before entering the more demanding stages of the programme. Once in the main degree, you will study game mechanics and system design, level design, narrative design, character and world-building, interface design, and the history and critical analysis of games as a cultural form.

You will work with industry-standard game engines and develop your ability to prototype, test, iterate, and refine game designs in response to player feedback. A typical entry tariff of 104 UCAS points means the programme is accessible to students from a range of prior educational contexts.

Games design develops a distinctive kind of thinking that is at once creative and systematic. You will learn to see a game as a set of interlocking decisions that produce an experience, and to evaluate and adjust those decisions with a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve.

Graduates work as game designers, level designers, narrative designers, user experience researchers, and producers across the games industry. Others move into related digital and interactive media roles. Many pursue further specialisation through postgraduate study.