Game Design

Bachelor of Science

Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media

BSDesignCreativity & InnovationIntercultural awarenessIn-Person
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The BS in Game Design prepares students to become storytellers, critical thinkers, entrepreneurs, and leaders in the field of games. Students often collaborate as part of interdisciplinary teams with programmers, artists, and musicians to master the iterative game design and development process to create polished experiences. Students build a portfolio showcasing their skills developing AAA, indie, and art games, as well as transformative play experiences on established and emerging platforms including augmented and virtual reality, tabletop, and other physical interfaces.
 

DePaul’s game design degree programs are nationally ranked by The Princeton Review and Animation Career Review.

For international students: this is a STEM-designated program, which can qualify you to extend your post-graduation stay in the United States.

Degree Requirements

Careers

Recent graduates of CDM’s game program have gone on to work at NeatherRealm Studios, Raven, Blizzard, Zynga, Bethesda, Zenimax, Iron Galaxy, Kongregate/Synapse, Trinket Studios, Jackbox Games, Schell Games, and more.

Several grads have gone on to form their own gaming companies, including Young Horses, whose indie hit Octodad was developed at DePaul.

Jarvis Innovation Center

The Jarvis Student Center for Innovation and Collaboration focuses on multidisciplinary professional learning and industry partnerships fueled by emerging technologies and projects dedicated to societal needs, innovation, and creativity.

Discover the Jarvis Center
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DePaul Originals
CDM students participate in DePaul Originals Game Studio lab as designers, producers and programmers, working on small portions of a bigger game over quarters, emulating a large studio experience. The studio produces and publishes work that is shipped to platforms like Steam, Xbox, PS5, and Switch. 
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Emerging Tech
An emerging tech room in the center is equipped with state-of-the-art technology that students can use for their projects. In this space, students collaborate across degree programs to create new and ground-breaking experiences with augmented and virtual reality, spatial computing, motion capture, and artificial intelligence.
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Industry Events
The center hosts events, including the Jarvis Speaker Series and showcases, that regularly feature industry experts and researchers across game development and other design topics. Recent guests have included Alex Seropian (founder of Bungie), Young Horses(Octodad, Bugsnax), and Chelsea Blasko (Co-CEO of Iron Galaxy).

Study Abroad

<div class="ck-content"><p class="feature--text">Study Abroad with programs like Game and Animation in Japan, which &nbsp;takes students to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nagoya on tours of Japanese game and animation studios, galleries, and cultural sites.<br />&nbsp;</p></div>

Explore Study Abroad
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Matters at Play

<div class="ck-content"><p class="feature--text">Matters at Play (M@P) is a transdisciplinary design lab focused on partnering in the creation of interactive advocacy solutions for positive social transformations - especially regarding social justice, health, and environmental issues. Partners include advocacy, government, non-government, and/or academic organizations looking to use interactivity in both digital and analog contexts with the goal of informing and transforming society and its people.</p></div>

Faculty
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DePaul CDM Faculty Lien Tran
Lien Tran
Associate Professor, School of Design
Lien is an award-winning designer who has serious fun breaking down real-world complexity into interactive systems, including social justice. Her design portfolio includes online and game-based tools for organizations such as Open Society Foundations, World Bank, and United Nations and a variety of interactive and game-based tools with collaborators in health education, human rights law, and geography/GIS.
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DePaul CDM Faculty Michael DeAnda
Mike DeAnda
Senior Professional Lecturer, School of Design
In his research, Mike studies the communication of queer lived experiences and modes of knowledge production through games. He uses game design as research praxis, and designs games that comment on structures of gender and sexuality, envisioning possible interventions to the social injustices uncovered through his research.
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DePaul CDM Faculty Allen Turner
Allen Turner
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Allen is the Creative Director of DePaul Originals Game Studio. He was formerly the lead designer and game director at Wideload Games/Disney Interactive Studio, where he worked on games like Stubbs the Zombie and Marvel XP. Allen regularly provides cultural presentations for the Chicago Public Library and Chicago Public Schools, and has coordinated programs focusing on literacy, role-playing activities, and team dynamics as a mechanism for developing inference and problem solving skills.
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DePaul CDM Faculty Brian Schrank
Brian Schrank
Associate Professor, School of Design
Brian is the author of Avant-garde Videogames: Playing with Technoculture, and the director of the Virtual and Augmented Design Lab. He co-curated the “Hey! Play! Games in Modern Culture” exhibit at the Chicago Design Museum.
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DePaul CDM Faculty Richard Wetzel
Richard Wetzel
Associate Professor, School of Design
Richard has been researching play and games in different realities since 2006 and is the director of the Hybrid Experience Lab. He is interested in how immersive technologies like augmented and virtual reality can be combined with the physical world, and how games can be used beyond entertainment, e.g. in health or educational applications.
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