Master in Game Design Universal Arts School

Learn the techniques and knowledge necessary to design the content and rules that shape any video game, board game, or serious game. From the phase of generating the idea, to the phase of production and launch.

We will learn to analyze the systems and mechanics that make your favorite games fun, we will develop our own functional prototypes and we will learn to create an environment where our players can immerse themselves for hours.

Florian Olivo / unsplash

You can train in three different ways:

• On-site: Classes are 3 hours a day from Monday to Thursday at our facilities.
• Telepresence: Students connect live with the teacher and their classmates from Monday to Thursday 3 hours a day. Once the classes are over, they hang out on the virtual campus to see them again as many times as needed.
• Online: Students have time freedom to access the classes recorded and uploaded by the teachers every day, and they have a weekly hour of tutoring with the teacher to resolve any doubts they may have.

Temary

Videogame history

• Origin first video games
• Company evolution
• Key figures and their impact on the sector
• Hardware evolution and consequences
• Generations of game consoles and platforms
• Video game crisis
• War of the formats
• Market evolution
• Evolution of the player profile
• Perception and social impact
• Evolution of the way of sale and distribution
• Competition and evolution
• Current and future distribution systems

Narrative

• Narrative fundamentals in video games
• Story vs. storytelling and interaction
• Types of dissonances in video games
• Script
• Creating atmosphere and aesthetics
• Embedded narrative
• Player narrative
• Character Creation
• The environment and its possibilities
• The player and the camera

Video game basics

• Definition
• Magic circle
• Typology of rules and consequences
• Conflict as a tool
• Open and closed systems
• Mechanical
• Emerging systems
• System design
• Player types
• Basic genres and subtypes
• Cultural resistance
• Formal elements
• Creation of a GDD
• Base prototyping
• Player psychology
• Collaborative creation and unwritten social norm
• Game language
• Conditioning of the game on the platform
• Video game tutorials

Game feel

• Challenge / Reward / Frustration Cycles
• Scope definition and iteration
• Actions and consequences
• Look and Feel
• Design by objectives

Level design

• Space creation fundamentals
• Create natural environments in 3D environments
• Keys to level design for platform games
• Keys to level design for strategy games
• Keys to level design for FPS
• Keys to level design for puzzle games

Videogame economics

• Game balance principles
  • Impartiality
  • Symmetry
  • Asymmetry
  • Archetypes
  • Hands and throws
  • Trait systems
  • Statistics
  • Challenge and success
  • Optimal decisions
  • Skill vs. probability
  • Motor or intellectual skills
  • Competition and collaboration
  • Long and short term strategies
• Application in strategy games
• Application in platform games
• Application in FPS games

Production and planning

• Task estimation and budgeting
• Calendar calculation and management
• Agile methodologies
• Release dates
• Feasibility metrics

Programming for technical prototyping basis

• Algorithm principles
• Fundamentals of basic programming
• Data containers
• Control structures
• Matrices
• Functions
• Corroutines
• Events
• Object-oriented programming
• Basic concepts of the logic of execution of a video game engine
• Persistence and data structures
• Engine collisions and physics
• Compiler and debug
• Character setup, movement and mechanics implementation
• Import and implementation of animations in engine
• State machines and blackboards
• Basic AI and navigation
• UI programming
• Build process

Marketing

• Principles of communication
• Buyer person and channels
• Customer acquisition and community building

Monetization and financing

• Game pitch
• Communication plan
• Market and platform analysis
• Financing methods
• User analysis
• Actors and deals with distributors and platform owners

Creation and analysis workshop "Workshop"

• Analysis of board games and video games on:
  • Mechanical
  • Game feel
  • Swinging
  • Patterns and fun
  • Action options
  • Optimal strategies
  • Rewards systems
  • Statistics calculation
  • Information management
  • DLCs and the gaming experience
  • Long and short term strategies
  • Consequences of actions on open systems
  • Deconstruction of the game rules
  • Reconstruction and consequences of rules
  • Collaborative design
  • Collaborative blind design

Accelerator module

Pre-production of the project

• Construction of the project pipeline
• Pipeline structuring with Shotgun
  • Follow-up assignments
  • Optimize the Gantt chart
  • Productivity parameterization
  • Timing assignment and team milestones
  • Tracking of production phases
  • Cloud connection Desktop Experience in person and online
  • Online project visualization
  • Share management
  • On-screen feedback
  • Multitasking review
  • Reduction of uncertainty in productivity analysis
• SCRUM methodology learning

Production

• Calendar calculation
• Feasibility metrics
• Testing
• Quality assurance
• Game pitch
• Marketing plan

Launch - prelaunch

• Market evaluation for departure dates
• Preparation for launch
• Pitch preparatory
• Presentation at events
• Project presentation court
• Presentation to the public

Glenn Carstens-Peters / unsplash

Teachers with real experience

Top teachers

Toni Abellán

• Programmer and Game designer
• Programmer with more than 6 years of experience, he found his passion in video game design. Co-creator of Jelly, Highway to galaxy, Pump the Samurais and UF Project. Current president of AEV, Association of Students of Video Games. His latest works have been in projects for Immersium Studio, a startup dedicated to serious games and VR and AR experiences.

Fernando Carrión

• Game producer, project manager
• Senior Game Producer and Project Manager has worked in companies such as King Digital Games (Activision / Blizzard Group), Black Maria Animation Studios, Cartoon Production, Toon Factory, or Aventuras AD. He has taught at the UIC - Barcelona, and the CEU San Pablo in Valencia, and has coordinated and directed digital creative events such as the Digital Jove (GVA-IVC), the Madrid Transmedia Living Lab or the Quirino Congress of Ibero-American Animation, between others.

Discover our exclusive Accelerator Program

Last year you will enjoy our 9-month acceleration program, which offers advice and training necessary for the development of all kinds of entrepreneurial projects. Take advantage of our Know how and all our facilities. Finish your training with a successful project and a professional demo-reel.

Work in a real studio

In the 9 months of accelerator you will work on a real project, a project with its objectives, its timings, its deadlines as in a real production company. You will know how to work in a video game or cinema development studio doing a real project, your project.

Your own startup

Do you want to develop your own project? If you have a good idea here you can carry it out. Or if not, you can always join the many ideas that we propose and launch ourselves, whether as a graphic designer, modeller, programmer, etc.

Real publishers

The main objective is that the projects see the light. For this reason we have different financing, distribution and promotion systems such as PlayStation Talents, which finance projects of up to € 200,000

Professional supervision

Because we know that working alone and without supervision is difficult. That is why the students of the accelerator will count from the first day with the help of our teachers and professionals who will supervise and provide constant help for the development of the project.

Custom installations

Working at home is very comfortable but it is not fruitful, we all know that. In our facilities you will work with your team in a professional environment, with a meeting room, a game room, food / drink machines and all the services of a company in the sector.

Multidisciplinary team

You will work with very different career students. Experts in video games, game design, programming, 3D modeling, animation, cinema, concept, all working as a team forming a link for future projects and ideas.

Employment exchange

We will take care of personally searching and managing job offers that may fit with the situation and preference of our students, both nationally and internationally.

Demo reel

And all this so that you have a professional demo reel, a specific demo reel for the job you want to develop, which you can attach to your cover letter or resume, which we assure you will open all doors to your professional future.

Register for free on our Virtual Campus

The most advanced campus in the world

We are the only school that has opened our campus to the entire world. Thousands of people, student or not, access our intranet daily to view videos, tutorials, lectures, demos, carry out missions and in general to interact with other students and professionals in the sector. A whole virtual world is waiting for you with infinite possibilities.

• Create your avatar
• Customize your room
• Vocational training
• Level up
• Talk with your friends
• Conferences and webinars
• Exercises and homework
• HD Videos