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Place or type of graduate program for a developer interested in game design?

Started by February 28, 2018 10:44 AM
5 comments, last by LaurenDenise 6 years, 8 months ago

Good day to you all.

Firstly let me apologize in advance for this topic, since I fear this may be in the wrong place of the site. This is a question related to both career path and Game Design, so I didn't know where to ask it exactly. (If you rather skip all the background story which I would totally understand, just go read the last line please).

 

Now to the topic itself. I'm in the last year of a 4-year degree in Multimedia Engineering, a degree I chose in order to become a game designer in the future. However, far from meeting my spectations, the degree only focused on the technical aspects of game development (programming, scripting, engine programming, artificial inteligence...). I would've wanted to learn at least a bit of such things as:

  • Storytelling
  • Gameplay and mechanics design
  • Psycology of the player
  • World building
  • Level Design
  • Visual Narrative
  • Character creation & writting

 

As it turned out, my degree had zero subjects or projects to learn any of those things. So now I find myself with a big lack of knowledge to start working in the area of the industry I like.

As a result, I am currently looking for a good master's degree (1 year) to focus solely (or at least mostly) in learning game design. Problem is, there are not many options for this in my country (Spain) so I'm considering moving to the United States to study, where I have found several universities which offer this type of master's degree to learn game design. Before I move out however, I would like to make sure I don't make the same mistake I made when I chose my current degree, and hence that's why I'm here. I have found many of these master's but everyone has very generic names for the subjects and I want to approach my choice whith maximum care. Thank you sincerely to anyone taking the time to read down to this point.

 

Do you know of any good master's degree in the US or Europe for Game Design or have you studied one which taught you the basics of the things I mentioned in the list above? 

 

6 hours ago, Manumeq said:

This is a question related to both career path and Game Design, so I didn't know where to ask it exactly.

Moved it to Careers. Your Bachelors degree sounds like a perfectly good start. You don't necessarily need to go for the Masters degree, but if you want to, start with the list of schools you already found. Then make a decision grid to decide which one(s) to apply to.  You could also just start building a portfolio, while reading up on those topics you listed. Yes, I'm talking about books (call me old-fashioned).

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

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17 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

Moved it to Careers. Your Bachelors degree sounds like a perfectly good start. You don't necessarily need to go for the Masters degree, but if you want to, start with the list of schools you already found. Then make a decision grid to decide which one(s) to apply to.  You could also just start building a portfolio, while reading up on those topics you listed. Yes, I'm talking about books (call me old-fashioned).

Thank you Tom for both taking your time to answer and moving the topic to the right place. I'm currently making a decision grid using the schools listed in The Princenton Review 2017 rank. I've also started a portfolio, so I'm relieved to hear I'm in the right path.

And no, you are not old-fashioned. In my team we still read good-old Effective C++ and Programming AI by Example books every now and then, they are very reliable books.

Cheers!

 

I'm currently enrolled in the game design Bachelors program at Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL. I'm an online student though because I moved from FL. And I can say you will probably want to attend class on campus (if you find yourself considering this school)  because in my opinion the online class leaves you to fend for yourself a bit. Which isn't bad but it can be challenging at times. But I do know that the bachelors program has you dabble in a little bit of everything. I know its not a Master's degree but they do have one available although the topics you listed would be in the bachelors program rather than the Masters. My school has a lot of mixed reviews but I haven't found it to be a bad school as some say. I hope this helps a little bit in regards to this school at least!

6 hours ago, LaurenDenise said:

I'm currently enrolled in the game design Bachelors program at Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL. I'm an online student though because I moved from FL. And I can say you will probably want to attend class on campus (if you find yourself considering this school)  because in my opinion the online class leaves you to fend for yourself a bit. Which isn't bad but it can be challenging at times. But I do know that the bachelors program has you dabble in a little bit of everything. I know its not a Master's degree but they do have one available although the topics you listed would be in the bachelors program rather than the Masters. My school has a lot of mixed reviews but I haven't found it to be a bad school as some say. I hope this helps a little bit in regards to this school at least!

Thanks a bunch! I've checked out Full Sail and it could be an option indeed. I have included it in my list of possible schools to apply!

6 hours ago, Manumeq said:

Thanks a bunch! I've checked out Full Sail and it could be an option indeed. I have included it in my list of possible schools to apply!

You're welcome! Glad I could help a bit!

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