Games Art and Design BA (Hons)
Length:
3 or 4 year options
UCAS Code:
WL21 (3 Year)
W280 (4 Year)
Institution Code:
N39
Optional Diploma Years:
Creative Professional Development (1 year, Level 5 diploma), or Creative Computing (1 year, Level 5 diploma), available between years 2 & 3
Explore and develop your skills of current game studio pipelines and be part of a collaborative, supportive department.
Our award-winning TIGA accredited BA (Hons) Games Art and Design has an international reputation for producing graduates who excel creatively and technically. In 2023 the Rookies ranked Norwich University of the Arts in its global top 30 – and placed us 7th for 3D Animation, 20th for Concept Art and Illustration and 29th for Game Design and Development in their global rankings. In addition, the course was awarded Best Educational Institute in 2023 at the TIGA Awards.
Our industry-led course follows a T-shaped learning model where you specialise in your chosen field yet crucially gain awareness of important industry pipeline processes that cover games development, art, and design to level up your knowledge and experience as a creative, opening a wealth of graduate employability options.
You will design and create characters, props, environments and vehicles using 2D and 3D content creation software for a range of platforms, including console, web, mobile, computer, augmented and virtual reality. You’ll approach design and content creation with a focus on originality, supported by research into historical, cultural and broader creative influences, helping you become a well-rounded and inventive artist and games designer.
Students and graduates have worked on major ‘AAA’ titles such as Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Red Dead Redemption 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Sea of Thieves, while others have set up their own successful independent studios.
Recent awards:
Four students have been awarded Outstanding in the 2024 TIGA Graduate of the Year
Why study with us
- Study the fundamentals of game design, industry-leading Unreal Engine, and be introduced to formative theoretical concepts from contemporary academics and practitioners.
- Design and create characters, props, environments and vehicles using 2D and 3D content creation software.
- Develop your skills across concept art, asset production, and indie development shaping your course journey with specialism support.
- Learn how to use computational logic to generate interactivity in the creation of game prototypes.
- Be involved in live briefs and collaborative projects such as games jams, both within Norwich and internationally where teams work together to build games from scratch under a deadline.
- Collaborate with technical-minded BSc (Hons) Games Development students to inspire and elevate each other’s projects.
- Engage in professional networking through our high-profile visiting speakers, or at major events like Develop: Brighton, Women in Games, Ukie Conference and Norwich Games Festival.
Course Content
Integrated Foundation Year (optional)
Our Integrated Foundation Year is designed to equip students with the necessary skills, knowledge and confidence to thrive in their chosen degree subject. The course provides a comprehensive introduction to various disciplines, blending critical thinking and creative problem-solving with practical hands-on experience. This year serves as a bridge to undergraduate studies, allowing students to explore their interests within a supportive and inspiring environment, while familiarising themselves with the campus, workshops, and tutors.
Year 1
This unit will introduce you to the fundamental principles of ideation and iteration in game development through concept art. You’ll be introduced to industry-standard pipeline processes and fundamental iterative design techniques, which is crucial for developing unique ideas. You’ll be introduced to 2D digital painting techniques such as lighting, composition, colour, texture, narrative, mood and intent. Emphasising research, communication, and critical thinking skills important to a creative practice, seminar discussion and lectures will invite you to begin to interrogate and understand the wider contexts within which games sit and introduce you to the critical and creative debate.
40 credits
In this unit, you will explore and experiment with techniques, materials, media, and ideas. Building on the introduction to game development pipelines in your concept art project, you’ll explore 3D modelling techniques and indie game development process. Project briefs enable you to explore storytelling, form, pacing, play, presentation and audience interaction. You’ll expand your knowledge of the principles and technical skills required to create 2D and 3D content for video games and other creative industries. You’ll build on established iterative design processes by applying them to 3D modelling and asset production, and games design and development. You’ll also study professional developers and their product standards to contextualise and understand current market trends and platform limitations. You will build your research skills to support idea generation and development, review and understand the wider games industry, and incorporate games studies into your studio practice.
80 credits
The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.
An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.
Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.
Year 2
In your second year, you will progress your knowledge of 2D and 3D content creation in a range of specialist areas, including environment art, character art, asset production, and indie development, to name a few. You’ll be introduced to a broad range of professional software, such as Maya, Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, Photoshop, and ZBrush, as you start to specialise in an area of game art or games design and development that suits your career development plan. You’ll consider your work within the context of different audiences and a variety of platforms, including console, web, mobile, computer, and augmented and virtual reality. You’ll approach design and content creation with a focus on originality, experimenting with form and function of your creative practice to begin to push the boundaries of game making. You’ll research into historical, cultural and broader creative influences, and how they can be used to promote equality, diversity and inclusion, to add depth and complexity to your ideas.
80 credits
This unit will introduce you to the ways collaboration can help you focus and enhance your creative strengths by working with fellow students and our creative community. Working in mixed teams on a project, you will use your creative ideas to generate solutions to the challenge or brief, to mimic a games development studio. You’ll participate in an internal and external game jam brief to create fully working game prototypes. You’ll develop your understanding of game pipelines by developing your own games, utilising production methodologies such as Lean, Waterfall, and Agile, to navigate through production challenges. This unit aims to enhance your career development by fostering problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork, listening, negotiation, and reflection skills.
40 credits
The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.
An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.
Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.
Diploma Year (optional)
Students have the opportunity to spend a year after the second of their degree (or the third year if studying for a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year) enhancing their employability options through a Level 5 Diploma. They can choose from courses designed to provide:
- opportunities to gain industry insight, developing employability skills through a series of supported experiences, expanding professional networks and building confidence in the workplace, or
- an introduction to creative computing, building an understanding of how coding skills can be used to advance and complement creative practice.
Final year
This is the first and shorter of the two units that make up your final year of study. You’ll define yourself as a game artist or designer. Working individually or in groups, you’ll undertake a number of projects using industry-standard digital tools to create stunning visual aesthetics or gameplay experiences that demonstrate your ability to critically evaluate and engage with important contemporary topics. The unit provides an opportunity for you to study a topic of your choice through a research project, enabling you to enter into the critical debate on an important area within games studies. Group and individual tutorials will provide stimulating and supportive sessions to help you develop your research ideas, and you’ll also be introduced to research methods and the principles of data summary and presentation.
40 credits
The unit will allow you to consolidate your learning from your degree programme into two final projects, bringing together ideas and techniques from throughout your study. These projects will be the focal point of your portfolio, showcasing skills and abilities to future employers or clients. Students will create a creative, industry-standard and/or experimental work demonstrating their practical and theoretical skills in their particular field or specialism. You’ll have the opportunity to display your final year project as part of our degree show, Grad Fest, which allows you to showcase your work to our network of industry professionals and prospective employers.
80 credits
The first week of each academic year is called Wayfinding week. It’s an opportunity get your bearings, establish new connections and, after your first year at Norwich, re-establish old ones. Your course team will talk you through the year ahead and explain the expectations for the year. We’ll help you navigate new encounters and identify areas to focus on as you progress through your course.
An important element of Wayfinding Week is taking part in our annual ‘Make it Manifest(o)’ project. Your course team will introduce the project in which we’ll ask you to consider your hopes and vision of the year ahead at Norwich and work with students in other year groups to bring your ideas to life. The project culminates in a celebratory display of work across the campus. The project will help you to develop your critical creativity through different approaches, concepts, and mediums. You’ll encounter diverse perspectives and build friendships and networks within our university community.
Interchange weeks are opportunities to step away from your disciplinary studies and engage in projects, workshops, visits and talks that extend your knowledge and understanding of the world. Whether you learn a new skill or take part in a global challenge project with students from other courses, you will come away with new insights to take back to your course. Interchange is part of the schedule for all Norwich students with sessions held across and beyond the campus led by university staff, visiting lecturers and students.
Accredited by:
Careers Information
Games Art and Design students have seen much success in their careers and pursuits while studying and beyond. Our graduates have gone on to become employees at Rockstar Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe, Foundry 42, Rebellion, Crytek, Frontier Developments, Splash Damage, Ubisoft, and many more.
Our hall of fame includes (but is not limited to): BAFTA-winning games designers, the V&A’s first Games Designer in Residence, Dare to Be Digital finalists, Norwich Games Festival founders and organisers, Ukie Student Game Jam winners, and Transfuzer finalists.
Typical career paths include
- Environment artist
- Prop artist
- Character artist
- Concept artist
- Generalist 2D/3D artist
- Visual effects/VFX animation artist
- Technical artist
- Indie Developer
- Game designer
- Level editor
- Creative/technical sound designer
- Project manager
- Producer
- Community manager
- Creative director
- QA tester
- QA management
- Games journalist
You’ll also get specialist creative careers advice from our Business and Employability team to help support you as you plan your career.
George Kee
Tabbed Section
Typical UK offers
A / AS Levels – GCE
GCE A/AS Levels 3 A-level qualifications at grades BCC (104 UCAS Tariff points) or above. Where candidates are not taking 3 A-levels, Norwich University of the Arts will consider combinations of A-level/AS-level and other Level 3 qualifications.
BTEC Extended Diploma (QCF or RQF)
Distinction, Merit, Merit in an art, design or media related subject
BTEC Diploma (QCF or RQF)
Distinction*, Distinction* in an art, design or media related subject
T Levels
A T Level in any subject with overall grade Merit or above
UAL Extended Diploma
Merit
UAL Level 3 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Pass
UAL Level 4 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Pass
Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Pass
Access to Higher Education Diploma (Art and Design)
Pass
International Baccalaureate Diploma
A minimum of 26 points
Norwich University of the Arts welcomes applicants of all ages from all backgrounds. Your application will be primarily assessed through your portfolio (if required), responses to questions asked and personal statement, so even if you have no formal qualifications or do not meet our typical offers it can still be worth applying.
If you are studying at the time of your application and your application is successful it is likely that you will receive a conditional offer.
If the qualification that you are studying is not shown, do not worry as we are able to accept other pre-entry qualifications as well as combinations of different qualifications. Please do contact our Student Recruitment Team if you have any queries.
International applications
We accept qualifications from all over the world. To find our entry requirements from a specific country, please check our dedicated international pages.
Most international students are required to hold an English language qualification. Applicants are required to have a minimum UKVI approved IELTS exam score of 6.0 overall, with a minimum of 5.5 in each section. Equivalent English language qualifications are acceptable such as, IB English language syllabus A or B/English Literature (Grade 4).
We also accept some alternative English qualifications. Learn more about our English entry requirements.
You can email us on international@norwichuni.ac.uk if you’d like to discuss your application individually.
BA (Hons) Games Art and Design degree portfolio guidance
Portfolios should show examples of your work — both finished and work in progress — that demonstrate your interests and skills. Your portfolio should be made up of work that reflects your creativity, personal interests and influences, as well as demonstrating your technical skills and ability. It doesn’t have to be perfect as we can assess your potential from your work in progress.
Your portfolio should be relevant to this course, but you can include a wide range of work that shows your creativity.
You may wish to include some of the following:
- Evidence of an ability to work from life i.e. observational and figure drawing
- Drawings, paintings or illustrations that exhibit an active imagination and aptitude for creative development
- Experience of asset creation and environment designs
- Storyboards or sequential art
- Games design concepts in 2-D/3-D
- Digital sculpture
- Work with game engines
- Reference photography, including environments, objects (assets) and textures.
- Work developed in Photoshop
- Animation projects
- Evidence of an ability to work in diverse styles i.e. a drawing approach that you are not used to.
Further portfolio advice and tips
Get more advice on presentation formats, layouts and when to submit your portfolio in the application process.
2024/25 University fees for new entrants
Norwich University of the Arts will assess students’ tuition fee status using the guidance provided by the UK Council for International Student Affairs
Students from the UK or Ireland and EU students with ‘Settled’ or ‘Pre-Settled’ status will be charged ‘Home’ fees if they meet the relevant residency requirements. They will usually be eligible for a tuition fee loan from the UK government, meaning that they won’t have to pay Norwich University of the Arts’ tuition fees upfront.
Students who do not meet the necessary residency requirements will usually be charged ‘Overseas’ fees and will not be eligible for the UK government tuition fee loan. Since 2021/22, this includes new entrants from the EU, EEA, and Switzerland who do not have ‘Settled’ or ‘Pre-Settled’ status, because the UK has now formally left the EU.
| Fee status | Course | Annual fee |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Undergraduate degree (full-time three and four year degree) | £9,250 |
| Overseas | Undergraduate degree (full-time three and four year degree) | £18,000 |
Inflation in subsequent years
The rules for inflation on fees in subsequent years depend on the type of fee status and level.
- For Home undergraduate students starting in 2024, inflation may be applied to your fees in later years, if the UK government were to increase the fee cap beyond the current limit of £9,250 per year. If such an increase were to apply, we would confirm this in advance to you of each academic year, and we would limit the increase to the maximum allowed by the Office for Students.
- For Overseas undergraduate students starting in 2024, inflation will be applied to your fees in later years. We will confirm this in advance to you of each academic year, and we will limit the increase to no more than the Office for Students’ recommended inflationary measure, which is RPI-X. RPI-X is calculated by the Office for Budget Responsibility. In setting fees for the following year, we will use the Office for Budget Responsibility’s RPI-X forecast for quarter 3 of the relevant year.
For Home and overseas postgraduate degree students starting in 2024, fees will remain the same for each year of your course.
Financial support for UK students in 2024
Tuition fee loans and loans for living costs are usually available to UK and some EU students, as well as non-repayable Norwich University of the Arts bursaries based on family income. Find out more about applying for funding.
International students
We offer a range of scholarships for international students to support your studies with us.
- Group briefings
- Academic tutorials
- Group tutorials
- Lectures
- Workshops
- Critiques (crits)
- Seminars
- Finished pieces of work
- Presentations
- Written work
- Your research
- A reflective journal
Work-based Learning Opportunities
Between Years 2 and 3 of this course, you’ll have the opportunity to undertake one of the following additional qualifications:
Creative Professional Development (1 year, Level 5 Diploma)
Our Creative Professional Development Diploma gives you the chance to spend a year exploring your post-uni job options through a structured programme of input sessions and work-based learning. This year offers two much-sought-after industry placements – the first lasting six weeks, the second 12 weeks, and a group project or ‘hackathon’ exploring freelancing and business start-up.
Creative Computing (1 year, Level 5 Diploma)
Our Creative Computing Diploma introduces you to coding and computational skills that will advance and complement your creative practice. No prior experience of coding is needed, just a curiosity about creative computing and a desire to push your own practice into new realms. You’ll also develop a wider knowledge of the creative tech industries, available roles and opportunities.
Integrated Foundation Year
Four year degrees are exactly the same as our three year degrees but include an extra year of study at the beginning – an Integrated Foundation Year.
An Integrated Foundation Year is about developing the skills, knowledge and the confidence you need to successfully complete your degree course. Building on your experience from A Level or equivalent courses, the Integrated Foundation Year curriculum allows time to develop the practical, creative and conceptual skills that are critical to successfully completing an undergraduate degree at Norwich. You will achieve this, making full use of the University workshops and studio facilities.
While studying an Integrated Foundation Year on BA (Hons) Games Art and Design studies will start with the Platformer project, where you’ll build a platform game using industry standard software.
For the second project you’ll work towards aspects of Concept Art, whether through establishing assets, building environments or focusing on character design. You’ll be introduced to relevant software and taught how to utilise it in order to achieve your goals.
You’ll be taught by Games tutors throughout and you’ll have the opportunity to join first, second and third year students for guest lectures.
Typical UK offers and entry requirements for Integrated Foundation Year entry
GCE A/AS Levels
2 A-level qualifications at grades CC or higher.
BTEC Extended Diploma (QCF or RQF)
Merit, Merit, Pass in an art, design or media related subject
BTEC Diploma (QCF or RQF)
Distinction, Merit in an art, design or media related subject
T Levels
Pass (D or E on the core)
UAL Extended Diploma
An overall Pass
UAL Level 3 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
An overall Pass
Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Pass
Access to Higher Education Diploma (Art and Design)
Pass
International Baccalaureate Diploma
A minimum of 24 points
Norwich University of the Arts welcomes applicants of all ages from all backgrounds. Your application will be primarily assessed through interview and portfolio review so even if you have no formal qualifications or do not meet our typical offers it can still be worth applying.
Find out more about four year degrees at Norwich
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Norwich University of the Arts is proud to announce that it has been named the inaugural Arts University of the Year by the Daily Mail University Guide…
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Norwich University of the Arts students had another successful year at Sync The City 2024, taking home the top two awards for the third year running
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Body Matters AHRA International Conference
Thursday 21 November – Saturday 23 November 2024
The 21st Architectural Humanities Research Association International Conference is taking place at Norwich this November, with the theme ‘Body Matters’.
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In conversation with
Iz tells us about what studying BA (Hons) Games Art and Design was like, why they chose Norwich and some of their favourite things about the city.
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