Games Technology BSc(Hons)

Why choose this course?

This course will equip you with the specialist skills needed to enter the fast-growing and highly competitive computer games industry. It explores a range of areas relevant to this interdisciplinary field – games programming, testing and evaluation, artificial intelligence, graphics, animation, mathematics and audio together with programming-oriented computer science. Our specialist games and media technology lab gives you access to high-end workstations, games consoles, graphics and media software.

The single honours course includes detailed work on graphics and multimedia. The joint honours version is less detailed in these areas, allowing time for your other studies.

What will you study?

Computer games technology is highly interdisciplinary and a wide variety of skills are needed. You will cover topics such as computer games programming, artificial intelligence, relevant game physics and mathematics, together with programming-oriented computer science. You will also look at the history of games, games genres and the games industry.

C++ is introduced right from the first year to give you experience in a language in high demand by the games industry, in parallel with Java. If you study single honours Games Technology you will cover 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation, audio and film and media in more detail. If you study Games Technology as a joint honours field, you will have the opportunity to choose modules in your second subject.

In the final year you will undertake a project such as the development of a computer game incorporating all the techniques you will have learned throughout the course.

Read about our games lab, which includes the latest Sony and Microsoft software as well as high-tech equipment such as PSPs and large screens.

Please note that this is an indicative list of modules and is not intended as a definitive list. Those listed here may also be a mixture of core and optional modules.

Year 1

• Introduction to Computer Games
• Games Fundamentals
• Programming Essentials
• Practical Programming
• Introductory Mathematics
• Light, Sound and Motion
• Fundamentals of Computer Generated Imagery

Year 2

• Computer Games Development
• Strategy and Intelligent Games
• Advanced Programming Concepts
• Operation Systems and Networking
• Multimedia Design
• Computer Generated Imagery and Sound 2

Year 3

• Advanced Games Programming
• Games Production
• Project
• Advanced Multimedia
• Options eg: Virtual Reality; Computer Vision; Computer Animation