Game Technology | BREDA UNIVERSITY

The master’s programme in Game Technology is a one-year programme. It focuses on facilitating your growth in research and development of your own project with support from industry partners and expert lecturers from the game industry.

Training in research methods allows students to develop deep insight into their chosen area of game development (either Programming or Visual Art), allowing them to work at a high level within the games industry.

Inducement

Many of the challenges in game development consist of new problems, for which ready-made solutions are unavailable. The game industry greatly benefits from knowledge in academia. The gap between scientific and applied knowledge, offers great opportunities for those able to tap the source of scientific literature and to apply this in a practical product.

Craftsmanship

Like our bachelor in Game Architecture and Design, our Master in Game Technology course staff consists of industry veterans, trained at Masters or Ph.D. level. This provides a practical focus, realistic assignments, a broad industry network and knowledge that is directly applicable to modern game development.

Guest lectures

Throughout the Master course, you will be able to attend guest lectures from a variety of experts from industry and academia. This ensures exposure to up-to-date knowledge, and insights from a broad range of experienced practitioners.

1 Year

All courses and examinations will be in English, so you need a good command of spoken and written English.

As an international applicant, you will also be required to demonstrate sufficient results of one of these tests:

CAE (Cambridge Advanced Certificate), or CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English)

 IELTS test (minimum overall band score of 6.0, and minimum subscore of 6.0 for speaking)

 TOEFL test (minimum score of 80 internet-based, and minimum subscore of 20 for speaking)

The Master in Game Technology is an excellent match for the bachelor's programme Creative Media and Game Technologies / International Game Architecture and Design.

Alternatively, students are eligible if they hold a bachelor's degree in the field of ICT, Graphical Design, or Games.

To prepare for this master’s programme, you will have to write a project proposal that summarizes one or more of your research ideas. This proposal will be evaluated and discussed during your intake interview.

Apart from your project proposal, criteria for admission are also your educational background, language skills and personal qualities and motivation. Work experience in any field is preferred, though a study-related work experience (e.g. work placement) may be accepted as an alternative. Depending on your test results, work experience and the field of study of your first degree, an additional course may be required for admittance to the programme.

Applying for the academic year of 2018-2019 will be possible from 1 October 2017 until the application deadline of 1 May 2018.

Ultimate closing date for applications: August 15, 2018

In case you have not obtained your bachelor’s degree yet, you can already apply by submitting your current transcript of records.

Breda has a growing number of students, which is why accommodation in Breda can be scarce. Unfortunately, Breda University of Applied Sciences has no campus or student rooms of its own and, therefore, it will be your own responsibility to find accommodation in Breda. Rental prices for a student room in Breda vary from €300 to €500 per calendar month. However, you will most commonly find rooms to rent for around € 400. Make sure you book a room in time (preferably in the early spring), so you have the best chances to book the room that suits your wishes. Unfurnished rooms can be cheaper to rent than furnished ones and since most rooms in the Breda are unfurnished, you may need to furnish your room yourself. This doesn’t have to be expensive as there are many DIY stores, second hand stores and second hand websites and Facebook pages.

If you want to find a good place to live in time, Breda University of Applied Sciences encourages you to subscribe to Klik voor Kamers (Click for rooms). This is a joint initiative of the three housing corporations in Breda: Laurentius, Singelveste Alleewonen and WonenBreburg.

This Master in Game Technology prepares students for future positions such as lead artist and lead programmer. These positions are no entry-level jobs. A couple of years of work experience within the industry is essential.

The job of  “lead artist” generally involves the following:

“A Lead Artist’s day to day work can vary greatly according to how far down the development path the project has progressed. Initially the Lead Artist works with a small core team, which can include the Game Designer and Lead Programmer, defining creatively the overall look and artistic approach for the game. The styling is often communicated through concept art, and the Lead Artist will supervise, if not actually undertake, the production of illustrative material, which indicates the visual  atmosphere and graphical design for the game. The Lead Artist also researches and tests out different modelling, texturing, animation, rendering and lighting techniques and tools appropriate to the games technology, with input from the Lead Programmer.”

The job of “lead programmer” generally involves the following:

“The Lead Programmer manages the software engineering of a game from start to finish. In conjunction with other key team leads (e.g. the Game Designer, the Lead Artist, etc.) they develop the technical specification for the game, and then delegate the different elements to their team of programmers.  The Lead Programmer usually compiles all the technical documentation for the software produced by the programming team and ensures the quality, effectiveness and appropriateness of all the game code.”

The Lead Programmer manages the production of the different ‘builds’ of a game (successive versions, each an improvement on the last), ensuring that coding bugs are fixed and appropriate solutions found (or as many as possible within the production  time frame) to move the project forward, liaising with the Project Manager to make sure that all this hap- pens on schedule.