MA in Visual Game and Media Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design

The application process is now open for the Visual Game And Media Design master’s program at KADK – the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design in Copenhagen.

This is a two-year program running from September 1, 2019. The application deadline is March 1st.

Visual Game and Media Design is an intensive two-year program for students wishing to do creative work in game design, visual media, and beyond. During the program, you will continually combine the hands-on creation of digital games, animations, motion graphics, and visual designs with innovative conceptual approaches to game design and storyworld design.

Who can apply?
The master’s program in Visual Game and Media Design is in English, and is open to all students, Danish and International, with a relevant bachelor’s degree in fields such as graphical design, game design, or 3D modeling. We encourage students with non-traditional backgrounds to apply.

More about the program
To read more about the program, go to the website or email program head Jesper Juul, jjuul@kadk.dk
https://kadk.dk/en/programme/visual-game-and-media-design

For more details about the application process: https://kadk.dk/en/optagelse

Why study at KADK in Copenhagen?
KADK is a leading academy in Scandinavia in the fields of architecture, design and conservation. It is located centrally by the Copenhagen harbor.

Copenhagen is a hub for video game development, with a vibrant English-language game development community, and home to both small and large companies such as Playdead, Throughline Games, Sybo games, IO Interactive, and Unity3D.

KADK works closely with (and is situated next to) the National Film School of Denmark, and with the professional TV and Film community in Denmark.

Game Studies Master’s Programme at Tampere University

Tampere University proudly presents a Master’s Programme in Game Studies!

The programme is particularly targeted at the questions of analysis, design and application of games from the interconnected perspectives of games, game players, game development and game cultures. It will give you the academic skills needed to analyse, observe and understand the developments in this field of study while also encouraging a more pragmatic involvement and hands-on attitude with games and playful design.

The programme is founded on the long history of education and research conducted at the University of Tampere’s Game Research Lab. At Tampere University, this internationally acclaimed research group coordinates the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies funded by the Academy of Finland in 2018-2025.

More info: https://www.tuni.fi/en/study-with-us/game-studies
Quick intro video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vscQioqfLGY&t=3s

The application period ends on 23 January 2019 at 3 pm (GMT+2).

PhD and Grad positions at Georgia Tech

The Digital Media program at Georgia Tech is now accepting applications at the Master’s and Ph.D. levels.

The Digital Media graduate program at Georgia Tech is a multidisciplinary program that engages students in making with meaning in digital media through their own discipline, skills, and expertise. Students here from the humanities, engineering, technology, and the arts backgrounds all engage in collaborative, practice-based work where they learn and apply design methods and critical theory in studio courses that are focused on having a voice–or giving a voice to others–through digital media.

They offer both a two year intensive Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Digital Media, working with leading researchers that touch on topics such as civic media, game design, smart cities, interactive installation, augmented & virtual reality, computational creativity, and STEAM-based education.

They host multiple online events to inform those interested in the program. More information and RSVP is available through our website: http://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/. The upcoming application deadlines for Fall 2019 are Dec. 10th, 2018, for the Ph.D. program and Jan. 8th, 2019 for the Master’s program.

Students interested in visiting the campus can do so during our open house event on January 18, 2019.  RSVP here.

If you or your students have any further questions about the program and admission process, please contact Brian Magerko or the Associate Director Michael Terrell directly at dgs@lmc.gatech.edu.

PhD, MS Positions at UC Santa Cruz

Computational Media is all around us — video games, interactive narrative, dynamic visualizations, smartphone apps, virtual reality, social media, personality-rich robots, individualized health coaching, and more. To create these kinds of media, to deeply understand them, to push them forward in novel directions, requires a new kind of interdisciplinary thinker and maker. The new graduate degrees in Computational Media at UC Santa Cruz are designed with this person in mind.

The M.S. is designed to help you build on your existing strengths and move into new areas. Maybe you’re a computer scientist or educator who wants to develop a deeper understanding of game design or human-computer interaction. Maybe you’re a storyteller or digital humanist who could explore new territories, but would need deeper technical skills. Maybe you have a background in health care or community organizing and want to find ways to engage the possibilities of computational media to assist and empower people. Maybe you’re already doing interdisciplinary work, but want to develop a deeper understanding of the field and a stronger portfolio.

The Ph.D., on the other hand, is designed for those who are already actively working in computational media and want to develop new knowledge that will change what is possible and how we understand it. You might be doing pathbreaking work in generative game design, software or platform studies, interactive narrative or characters, VR or AR, assistive technology, games and emotion, social and embodied interaction, visualization, highly personalized media, human-robot interaction, or a wide range of other areas. You might be interested in a broad set of applications for computational media, from social support or personalized learning to emotional engagement or critical commentary. The Ph.D. will provide you with an interdisciplinary foundation and supportive research community for moving your work forward.

This year we are accepting applications for our third incoming cohort in these degrees. Our current students have backgrounds in areas such as game design, fashion, culinary arts, playwriting, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, software engineering, and human-computer interaction. They hail from around the world (e.g., India, Turkey, Spain, Israel, Russia, China) and across the U.S. (from Tennessee to California, Texas to New York). Their work has appeared in academic conferences (e.g., SIGGRAPH), on stage (e.g., NYC Fashion Week), in festivals (e.g., the Independent Games Festival), and in commercial venues (e.g., featured in Apple’s App Store). We’re excited to bring in another diverse cohort to join them.

The faculty of the Computational Media department are:

  • Nathan Altice: Media researcher with a focus on hardware platforms, humanities computing, and computer archaeology. Sound artist and musician. Author of I AM ERROR: The Nintendo Family Computer / Entertainment System Platform.
  • Angus Forbes: Researcher in information visualization and computer graphics, with additional interests in VR/AR, applied machine learning, computational aesthetics, new media arts, and creative coding.
  • Katherine Isbister: Human computer interaction and games researcher, focused on emotion and social connection. Builds and studies games and other playful experiences using novel interfaces (wearables, tangibles, biosensors, motion-tracking). Author of How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design.
  • Michael John: Game designer and developer with more than 20 years commercial experience. Co-author of ‘Cerny Method’ game development methodology. Interested in level design, game analytics, and alt-control input and output systems.
  • Sri Kurniawan: Works on designing interactive systems for social good with and for populations with special needs, including older persons, people with disabilities, those from low socioeconomic and educational backgrounds and those from third world countries. Her scientific pursuit is in how assistive, educational and therapy technology can be enjoyable, usable, and useful through combining design and functionality.
  • David Lee: Social computing researcher focused on designing new models for learning and community engagement. Combines interdisciplinary perspectives from human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence to define models, develop algorithms, and design systems that are deployed within UCSC and with nonprofit and government partners.
  • Michael Mateas: Works in the area of AI-based art and entertainment. Interested in how AI and simulation approaches open up new forms of computational media, including new approaches to interactive storytelling, new kinds of AI-assisted game and media-design tools, new kinds of games and interactive media using generative methods, and new forms of interactive art. Previous works include the interactive drama Facade, the social simulation game Prom Week and the vision-based visual art generator Tableau Machine.
  • Eddie Melcer: Human computer interaction and serious games researcher with a focus on alternative controller interfaces and educational games. Builds games that utilize alternative controller interfaces (such as tangibles, AR/VR, and DIY custom interfaces with arduino), and evaluates their efficacy on various outcomes such as learning. Has created and shown a number of festival games such as Bots & (Main)Frames, Veterinarian’s Hospital: Ruff Day, and SceneSampler.
  • Adam M. Smith: Applied AI researcher, using information retrieval, probabilistic logical inference, combinatorial search, knowledge representation and machine learning to loosen bottlenecks in exploratory game design and support high-assurance generative systems. Builds design automation tools with active designers on experimental game projects such as Refraction, DragonBox Adaptive, and RiddleBooks.
  • Noah Wardrip-Fruin: Works on digital fictions, games, and art (e.g., The Impermanence Agent, Screen, Prom Week) and new technologies and approaches for enabling and understanding them. Author of Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies.
  • Jim Whitehead: Generative methods researcher, focused on procedural generation of game levels and real world artifacts. Software engineering researcher focused on generative models of software evolution. Has a habit of starting game programs.

Other UC Santa Cruz faculty who collaborate with computational media faculty include: Michael Chemers, Robin Hunicke, Soraya Murray, Warren Sack, Elizabeth Swensen, Susana Ruiz, Leila Takayama, and Steve Whittaker.

UC Santa Cruz is a campus of the University of California with a longstanding and deep commitment to interdisciplinary knowledge and creation. Its main campus is located in a beautiful redwood forest, overlooking Monterey Bay. It also has a new campus, a short drive away, in the heart of Silicon Valley. (The Computational Media department offers a professional M.S. in Games & Playable Media at this location, and next year will start a new professional M.S. in Serious Games.) UCSC values diversity, with more than 40% first-generation college students, recent recognition as a Hispanic-serving institution, and consistent rankings among the the nation’s best campuses for GLBTI students. In the 2017-18 Times Higher Education world rankings, UC Santa Cruz was ranked third in research influence as measured by the number of times its faculty’s published work is cited by scholars around the world.

Questions can be sent to cm-grad@soe.ucsc.edu. Also, two archived video information sessions are available to view:

Applications for these programs close December 16th. The GRE general test is required. For more information, please visit:

http://graddiv.ucsc.edu/prospective-students

https://www.soe.ucsc.edu/departments/computational-media

LearnGaelic Scholarship for MSc Serious Games & VR at The Glasgow School of Art

MG ALBA and Bòrd na Gàidhlig have teamed up with the School of Simulation and Visualisation (SimVis) at The Glasgow School of Art to offer a new “LearnGaelic” Scholarship. The scholarship is offered as part of a new commitment to developing interactive tools for learners of Gaelic, and will support a Gaelic learner to study on the MSc Serious Games and Virtual Reality at SimVis starting from September 2017.
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Changing the Game at AAU Klagenfurt / Austria – New Master’s Programme Game Studies and Engineering

New Master’s Programme Game Studies and Engineering – Changing the Game at AAU Klagenfurt / Austria

The new Master’s degree programme Game Studies and Engineering is an interdisciplinary programme, instructing students on technical as well as analytical and ethical issues regarding video- and other games. Students with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Sciences or/and the Humanities, an interest in the development, analysis, critical reflection of videogames and proficiency in spoken and written English, are encouraged to enrol in this programme. The focus of the curriculum is on the manifold nature and contextualisation of games with regard to an array of different but interconnected areas of investigation.

The programme provides students with a platform to learn, study, and create games and multimedia applications. Engaged and motivated teachers and bottom-up teaching methods will involve students in game studies, game engineering and production. The practical nature of the program are underpinned by a project semester as an integral part of the curriculum and international partners – including universities and companies – will connect students beyond campus limits.

Particularities

  • Interdisciplinary master programme game studies and game engineering
  • Taught entirely in English
  • Engaged and motivated lecturers
  • International partner universities and companies
  • Practical work, ie. a semester-long project, as part of the curriculum
  • Bottom-up teaching methods to involve students in game studies and game making
  • A platform to learn, study and make great games and multimedia applications

https://www.aau.at/en/studien/master-game-studies-and-engineering/

Registration is open until August 31st.

(We advise students from non-EU states to apply as soon as possible to handle necessary letters of eligibility and matters of visas in a timely fashion.)

The Master’s Programme is an offer for game-research and –industry interested students to receive a holistic foundational education. It is also a unique opportunity regarding international student exchange among both, cultural- and technology-focused game studies institutions. We are looking for applicants and affiliates worldwide.

For further information, please contact Felix Schniz, the Director of Study, at felix.schniz@aau.at.

Cologne Game Lab – Applications open!

The Cologne Game Lab is happy to announce that the application process for the Master of Arts in Game Development and Research and the Bachelor of Arts in Digital Games is underway for the winter semester of 2017-2018.

Both programs are in English and open to German and international students alike. Applicants have until March 31 to finish the first stage of the application process. Classes start in October.

The Cologne Game Lab is a department of the TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences, which is located in Cologne, Germany, and it works closely with a wide range of Game Developers, such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft Blue Byte, Guerrilla Games, Bright Future, Takomat, and The Good Evil.

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Visual Game and Media Design masters program in Copenhagen, deadline March 1st

Apply to the Visual Game and Media Design master’s program at KADK in Copenhagen. The Application deadline for the 2017-2019 class is March 1st. Please join us!

MA in Visual Game and Media Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of DesignApplications are now open for the Visual Game And Media Design master’s program at KADK – the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design in Copenhagen.

This is a two-year program running from September 1, 2017. The application deadline is March 1st.

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