Game Design and Development (with placement year) BSc (Hons) at University of Bradford

Overview

On this course we aim to develop you as a student to become a highly-skilled, experienced, professional, computer game developer and technical designer. You will be introduced to the creative and technical aspects of game level design and creation, game play, technical computer animation, game programming and script programming, supported by appropriate contextual and technical theory to inform your practice. You will learn how to generate and develop ideas and solve technical problems. In the final year you will undertake an individual project and major production project in a studio environment designed to replicate real world and industry production processes. There will also be opportunities to work on projects for external clients.

In the second and third years you can develop your own areas of interest and expertise through a range of options. Between the second and third year you can also take a year out to study abroad at a partner university or to do a placement in industry.

The course is designed for those students who want to learn to design, develop and programme computer games, using the most up to date industry standard technologies. Whilst we are not subject specific, the course typically attracts students with an interest in computer programming and scripting, animation, game play, artificial intelligence. We welcome students who have A level, BTEC or equivalent qualifications.

Learning and assessment

Students will experience a wide range of teaching and learning environments. Concepts, principles and theories are generally explored in formal lectures, discussed and debated in associated tutorials and seminars, and demonstrated in laboratory classes. Practical skills are developed in studio, laboratory, and workshop sessions, taking advantage of the University’s, and its partners’, extensive software and hardware provision.

Professional, personal, and presentational skills are developed through discussion and small-scale project work which involves problem solving and design exercises. These are often tackled through collaborative learning in small groups supported by members of academic staff. Larger–scale project work is used to bring various aspects of your programme together. A particular strength of this programme is the contribution made to the teaching programme by successful practising animation professionals.

Each 20-credit module on the programme requires students to commit 200 hours of study. Some of these hours will be formally timetabled - lectures, laboratories, seminars, tutorials and workshops – and others will involve students in carrying out private study. The balance between these forms of study changes as students pass through the three years of the programme.

Career prospects

Employment statistics

94% of our 2017 graduates in Animation, Games and Visual Effects found employment or went on to further study within six months of graduating.