Game Creation BA (Hons)
Subject and course type
- Digital media and gaming
- Interaction and experience design
- Undergraduate
Kingston University is launching its Game Creation (Hons) degree course in September 2026. You can find out more about our new course and register your interest below.
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Investigate, instantiate and iterate the future of gameplay
Take an expansive journey in making interactive, narrative and experiential worlds that balance playful and professional mindsets.
Games is one of the fastest-growing creative industries, shaping how we play, learn, and connect. The BA (Hons) Game Creation at Kingston School of Art is not a typical game design course. Inspired by the spirit of early creators, it prepares you to broadly understand, apply and experience all aspects of game creation, from ideation and design to development and deployment.
You will take a transdisciplinary approach, learning by combining creative, design driven, narrative and systems thinking with technical and audience driven application. Where other courses focus on niche specialisms, Game Creation develops connectors who see the bigger picture. Ultimately, this course aims to empower you to extend your impact beyond existing markets – using games not only to entertain, but also to create solutions, speculate, and play with undiscovered possibilities.
You will graduate as an adaptive, ambitious, and inclusive creator, ready to shape the future of interactive media and a world through games.
Why choose this course
- This course champions transdisciplinary learning, combining creative, design driven, narrative and systems thinking with technical and audience driven application.
- You will develop your capacity to investigate, instantiate, and iterate. These are the three guiding stages of the course mapped to the University’s Future Skills strategy.
- You will gain hands-on practice with industry-standard game engines and real-time 3D tools.
- There are opportunities to explore generative systems, AI, and procedural content.
- The course offers studio-based projects where you prototype, test, and refine interactive experiences.
- You will be able to collaborate across creative disciplines in Kingston School of Art’s Future Skills framework.
- You'll have access to world-class facilities, such as 3D workshops, digital media labs, and immersive spaces.
- You can cultivate inclusive, ethical, and sustainable design practices that reflect current industry trends and embed principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion.
- Learning experiences informed by Kingston’s ethos of Thinking Through Making.
- You will develop a professional portfolio to showcase your creative, conceptual and technical skills.
- You'll be prepared not only for careers in games but also in serious games, interactive, narrative, and experiential design.
The Art School Experience
As part of Kingston School of Art, students benefit from joining a creative community where we encourage collaborative working and critical practice.
Our workshops and labs are open to all disciplines, enabling students and staff to work together, share ideas and explore multi-disciplinary making.
Course content
The BA (Hons) Game Creation takes you on an expansive journey of making interactive, narrative and experiential worlds that balance playful and professional mindsets. This is structured around three key stages: Investigate, Instantiate, Iterate.
Year 1 (Level 4)
In Year 1 (Investigate), you will explore the foundations of game creation. This includes playing with visual design, storytelling, world-building, programming fundamentals and an introduction to real-time 3D engines as creative laboratories. You will also examine the history and cultural impact of games, while prototyping ideas and learning with and from your peers.
Modules
- Thinking Through Play
- Creative Tools and Pipelines
- Living & Breathing Worlds
- Studio Lab Collaborative Practice
Year 2 (Level 5)
In Year 2 (Instantiate) you will be thinking through game play to bring ideas to life. You learn to navigate between narrative, technical and ethical frameworks to create playable experiences for relevant audiences. This integration allows you to develop rich, multi-dimensional experiences while learning to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries.
You will develop project management skills, experiment with generative and interactive systems and work on real-world briefs through a games lens.
Modules
- Narrative Systems and Experience Design
- AI and Interaction: Designing Responsive Systems
- Critical Futures: Ethics, Inclusion and Sustainability in Game Creation
- Transdisciplinary Studio: Real-world Projects
Year 3 (Level 6)
In Year 3 (Iterate) you will expand your creative practice through a major project. You will prototype, test, and articulate an interactive experience or applied project, while building a professional portfolio that positions you for careers across games and the wider creative industries. You are encouraged to critically examine and challenge existing game design systems, envisioning how the industry might evolve and influence other fields over future decades.
Modules
- Experimental Practice: Games Beyond Entertainment
- Entrepreneurship, IP and the Games Industry
- Capstone: Game Creation Final Project
- Future Skills Apply
Creation through play
What career opportunities does this course offer?
Graduates of the BA (Hons) Game Creation will leave with a broad and versatile skillset that prepares graduates for roles not just in games, but also in creative technologies, immersive media, UX design, and speculative and service design fields applied to a wide range of vertical markets including healthcare, social enterprise, education, and entertainment.
You will graduate with a professional portfolio, strong collaborative experience, and the adaptability to move between creative and technical domains.
This degree provides a foundation for postgraduate study in games, creative technologies, or related fields.
Future Skills
Our Future Skills programme is embedded within all our undergraduate courses and throughout the whole Kingston experience. These skills will help you to become a future-proof graduate by equipping you with the skills most valued by employers, such as problem-solving, digital competency and adaptability.
As you progress through your degree, you'll learn to navigate, explore and apply these graduate skills. You’ll also understand how to demonstrate and articulate to employers how these future skills give you the edge.
Teaching and assessment
Scheduled learning and teaching on this course includes timetabled activities including lectures, seminars and small group tutorials.
It also includes critiques, studio practice digital labs, workshops and placements.
Projects throughout the course simulate real-world development environments and workflows. Guest lectures, studio feedback sessions, and industry co created briefs ensure students are attuned to the expectations, ethical standards, and workflows of contemporary production environments.
All core learning activities will take place in person, fostering a collaborative studio lab environment and team-based culture. However, asynchronous content such as reflective prompts, peer feedback activities, and technical documentation will be delivered through Canvas. Occasional synchronous online activities (guest speakers, playtesting feedback, etc.) will represent no more than 10–15% of total contact time.
Outside the scheduled learning and teaching hours, you will learn independently through self-study which will involve reading articles and books, working on projects, undertaking research, preparing for and completing your work for assessments. Some independent study work may need to be completed on-campus, as you may need to access campus-based facilities such as studios and labs.
Our academic support team here at Kingston University provides help in a range of areas.
When you arrive, we'll introduce you to your personal tutor. This is the member of academic staff who will provide academic guidance, be a support throughout your time at Kingston and show you how to make the best use of all the help and resources that we offer at Kingston University.
A course is made up of modules, and each module is worth a number of credits. You must pass a given number of credits in order to achieve the award you registered on, for example 360 credits for a typical undergraduate course or 180 credits for a typical postgraduate course. The number of credits you need for your award is detailed in the programme specification which you can access from the link at the bottom of this page.
One credit equates to 10 hours of study. Therefore 120 credits across a year (typical for an undergraduate course) would equate to 1,200 notional hours. These hours are split into scheduled and guided. On this course, the percentage of that time that will be scheduled learning and teaching activities is shown below for each year of study. The remainder is made up of guided independent study.
- Year 1: 25% scheduled learning and teaching
- Year 2: 23% scheduled learning and teaching
- Year 3: 18% scheduled learning and teaching
The exact balance between scheduled learning and teaching and guided independent study will be informed by the modules you take.
Your course will primarily be delivered in person. It may include delivery of some activities online, either in real time or recorded.
Types of assessment
- Year 1: Coursework and practical assessments
- Year 2: Coursework and practical assessments
- Year 3: Coursework, practical assessments, final year major project.
We aim to provide feedback on assessments within 20 working days.
Your individualised timetable is normally available to students within 48 hours of enrolment. Whilst we make every effort to ensure timetables are as student-friendly as possible, scheduled learning and teaching can take place on any day of the week between 9am and 6pm. For undergraduate students, Wednesday afternoons are normally reserved for sports and cultural activities, but there may be occasions when this is not possible. Timetables for part-time students will depend on the modules selected.
Fees and funding
| Fee category | Annual Fee |
|---|---|
| Home (UK students) | £10,050* |
| International | |
| Year 1 (2027/28): | £To be confirmed |
| Year 2 (2028/29): | £To be confirmed |
| Year 3 (2029/30): | £To be confirmed |
The tuition fee you pay depends on whether you are assessed as a 'Home' (UK), 'Islands' or 'International' student.
For courses with Professional Placement, the fee for the placement year can be viewed in our Fees and Funding section. The placement fee published is for the relevant academic year stated in the table. This fee is subject to annual increases but will not increase by more than the fee caps as prescribed by the Office for Students or such other replacing body.
*For full-time programmes lasting more than one academic year, a tuition fee is payable for each academic year of the course.
Your annual tuition fee covers your first attempt at all modules required for that academic year. Any re-study or repeat of modules will incur additional charges, calculated according to the number of credits taken.
Home students (UK): Tuition fees are subject to inflation-linked increases in line with government policy. Updated fees will be confirmed in line with the maximum fee cap set by the Government or the Office for Students (OfS) for each academic year. This means your fee may increase for each academic year of study, but only up to the maximum amount permitted for that year.
Eligible UK students can apply to the Government for a tuition loan, which is paid direct to the University. This has a low interest-rate which is charged from the time the first part of the loan is paid to the University until you have repaid it.
International students: Full-time taught international student fees are subject to an annual increase, which is published in advance for the full duration of your programme.
| Fee category | Annual Fee |
|---|---|
| Home (UK students) | £9,790* |
| International | |
| Year 1 (2026/27): | £19,200 |
| Year 2 (2027/28): | £19,900 |
| Year 3 (2028/29): | £20,700 |
The tuition fee you pay depends on whether you are assessed as a 'Home' (UK), 'Islands' or 'International' student.
For courses with Professional Placement, the fee for the placement year can be viewed in our Fees and Funding section. The placement fee published is for the relevant academic year stated in the table. This fee is subject to annual increases but will not increase by more than the fee caps as prescribed by the Office for Students or such other replacing body.
*For full-time programmes lasting more than one academic year, a tuition fee is payable for each academic year of the course.
Your annual tuition fee covers your first attempt at all modules required for that academic year. Any re-study or repeat of modules will incur additional charges, calculated according to the number of credits taken.
Home students (UK): Tuition fees are subject to inflation-linked increases in line with government policy. Updated fees will be confirmed in line with the maximum fee cap set by the Government or the Office for Students (OfS) for each academic year. This means your fee may increase for each academic year of study, but only up to the maximum amount permitted for that year.
Eligible UK students can apply to the Government for a tuition loan, which is paid direct to the University. This has a low interest-rate which is charged from the time the first part of the loan is paid to the University until you have repaid it.
International students: Full-time taught international student fees are subject to an annual increase, which is published in advance for the full duration of your programme.
Additional course costs
Some courses may require additional costs beyond tuition fees. When planning your studies, you’ll want to consider tuition fees, living costs, and any extra costs that might relate to your area of study.
Your tuition fees include costs for teaching, assessment and university facilities. So your access to libraries, shared IT resources and various student support services are all covered. Accommodation and general living expenses are not covered by these fees.
Where applicable, additional expenses for your course may include:
Our libraries have an extensive collection of books and journals, as well as open-access computers and laptops available to rent. However, you may want to buy your own computer or personal copies of key textbooks. Textbooks may range from £50 to £250 per year. And a personal computer can range from £100 to £3,000 depending on your course requirements.
While most coursework is submitted online, some modules may require printed copies. You may want to allocate up to £100 per year for hard-copies of your coursework. It’s worth noting that 3D printing is never compulsory. So if you choose to use our 3D printers, you’ll need to pay for the material. This ranges from 3p per gram to 40p per gram.
Kingston University will pay for all compulsory field trips. Fees for optional trips can range from £30 to £350 per trip.
Your tuition fees don’t cover travel costs. To save on travel costs, you can use our intersite bus service. This route links the campuses and halls of residence with local train stations - Surbiton, Kingston upon Thames, and Norbiton.
If you choose to do a placement year, travel costs will vary depending on your location. These costs could be up to £2,000.
Scholarships and bursaries
For students interested in studying this course at Kingston, there are several opportunities to seek funding support.
Course changes and regulations
The information on this page reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. To improve your student experience and the quality of your degree, we may review and change the material information of this course. Find out more about course changes
Programme Specifications for the course are published ahead of each academic year.
Regulations governing this course can be found on our website.
