Practice the Power of Play

As the only program of its kind in the United States, the Master of Arts in Game Design drives students to stretch their capacities as designers, developers, consumers, and game administrators and apply that to their unique field of interest. Students bring to the program their own experiences—whether in politics, science, art, history, marketing, or international studies—and can choose from multidisciplinary courses across our schools of communication, business, and arts.

What issue are you passionate about? Bring your creativity into play with a Master’s in Game Design. Through game design theory, development, and design, our students bring about behavior change, expand awareness, and make a difference. With award-winning faculty and real-world experience, our program prepares students for a career in all facets of game design, play theory, and engagement strategies. Students leave with the skills and experience they need to succeed in applying game design to non-game contexts.

Consistently ranked as one of the best cities for job seekers, Washington, DC, offers game design master’s students unparalleled access to private and public sector opportunities.

Take advantage of institutional relationships with government agencies, locally based companies, and not-for-profits alike. Clients you may contract with include the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), and WAMU 88.5.

Connect through renowned DC-held events, such as Indie Arcade at the Smithsonian Museum, Global Game Jam, MAGfest, Games+, and more.

Whether your next career step is local or global, you’ll gain the skills and network you need to succeed.

The Master of Arts in Game Design is a unique, multi-disciplinary 36-credit hour program focused on game design and game engagement mechanics intended to influence non-game contexts and challenges.

The program will develop students' intellectual capacity as designers, developers, consumers, and games administrators. Beyond traditional game design and development, students learn to tailor play design for distinct education purposes.

Required courses such as Games and Rhetoric and Games and Society take students beyond the fundamentals of building a great game. With their 9 credit hours of electives, students are able to choose from a variety of concentrations, or create one of their own.

Complete Degree and Course Requirements

Program Director Andy Phelps is an internationally exhibited is an augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) expert with a wide-ranging background in game design, education, art and interactive experiences. He is co-founder and currently serves as president of the Higher Education Video Game Alliance (HEVGA) and he is also a professor at the Human Interface Technologies Laboratory NZ (HITLabNZ)within the College of Engineering at the University of Canterbury.

With a 4:1 full-time student to faculty ratio, Game Lab students benefit from one-on-one interaction with world-renowned faculty. From working with Game Studio clients to performing scholarly research, students are able to learn from, and work side-by-side with faculty.

Chat

Capstone Projects Showcase Game Design Students’ Skills and Creativity

Curriculum Highlights

In the core curriculum, the average student completes:

Game Prototyping: 400+ hours of tools like Processing, GameSalad, Twine, Construct 2.
Unity: 270 hours of building 3D games and creating playable experiences in a production level game engine.
Game Production Methodology: 200+ hours of iterative design, user testing, press kit creation.
Adobe Suite: 180+ hours including significant Photoshop, with access and elective exposure to InDesign, Illustrator, etc.
Game Design Methodology: 150+ hours of personas, user stories, wireframing.
Project Collaboration and Coordination Tools: 100+ hours including Slack, git, Google Docs.
Programming for Games: 45 hours of C#
Mobile and augmented reality tools: 1-2 courses possible including storytelling tools like ARIS, museum exhibit systems with Raspberry Pi, smart city sensor systems (RFID, GPS, sound triggers, etc.)
Bonus Platforms: You’ll be exposed to an exceptionally broad range of custom platforms, from Twine to Twilio (cloud-based telephony), from LAMP to Google Analytics, survey systems like Qualtrics and more!

AU Game Lab Student Brings Avatars to Life for ETS

Kirby Cofino, SOC/MA '19

Game Design

It's really about freedom and critical thinking.

During the summer of 2017, MA in Game Design student Kirby Cofino interned with the DIAMONDS research group in the San Francisco office of Educational Testing Service (ETS) on a speech system called HALEF, a "multimodal dialogue system." It's a computer program that allows a person to talk to a computer, and the computer responds. Cofino’s role in the development of HALEF was to create 3D virtual human avatars that synced up with the computer’s responses.

The AU Game Lab has a 4 to 1 Student-Faculty ratio

number 15 Grad school for Game Design in the world for 2020

Princeton Review

50 percent of Game Design students work with corporate, NGO and government partners

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is a typical Game Lab student?

There is no typical Game Lab student! Students bring their unique backgrounds and passions to the program, having addressed diverse topics such as mental health, social justice, journalism, politics, money management, and advertising. The program can lend itself to your particular area of interest.

What technical skills do I need to study Game Design at AU?

You do not need to have a background in coding to become a Game Lab student, just a love for games and the desire to learn.

How do I choose which AU Game Lab program is right for me?

Review the comparison chart below of our different degree offerings.

Comparison chart to explain the differences in related master's programs to Game Design. This includes MA in the Game Design, MFA in Games and Interactive Media, MFA in Film & Electronic Media, MS in Computer Science, and the Certificate in Game Design.
Program	Degree	Format	Offered	Start Date	Duration	Credit Hours
Game Design	MA	Weekday	Full/Part-Time	August	2 Years	36
Games and Interactive Media	MFA	Weekday	Full/Part-Time	Early August	2-3 Years	54
Film & Media Arts	MFA	Weekday	Full/Part-Time	Early August	2-3 Years	54
Computer Science	MS	Weekday	Full/Part-Time	August or January	2 Years	30
Game Design	Certificate	Weekday	Part-Time Only	August	1 Year	15

Still have questions? Send us an email: GradComm@american.edu

MA in Game Design

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