Introduction to Video Games Creation, 1-35 ECTS cr

List of Modules (35 ECTS):
You can study the modules in any order you want, however the teaching of each module builds on each other, hence if you are a beginner, this is our recommended order of study them from easy to most difficult:

THEORY MODULES – THE GAMES INDUSTRY AND CONCEPT DESIGN:
Module 10 – History of Games (1 Credit)
Module 11 – Game Experience Analysis, My Favourite Game (1 Credit)
Module 12 – Innovation in Games – (1 Credit)
Module 13 – The Games Industry and Data Analytics (1 Credit)
Module 14 – Analysis of The Game I Play Now (1 Credit)
Module 15 – Ideation and Value Creation in Games (1 Credit)
Module 16 – Artificial Intelligence for Games (2 Credits)
Module 17 – Video Games Production (1 Credit)
Module 18 – Game Concept Design (2 Credits)

PRACTICAL MODULES – VIDEO GAME DEVELOPMENT:
Module 1 – Introduction to Development Tools (2 Credits)
Module 2 – “The Return”, Text Adventure Game (1 Credit)
Module 3 – “Merlin’s Demon War”, Card Combat Game (4 Credits)
Module 4 – Pixel Art 2D (2 Credits)
Module 5 – Mobile Snake Game (5 Credits)
Module 6 – Space Shooter (2+3+5 Credits)

It is essential that you demonstrate activity as soon as possible by completing at least one module.
We recommend starting with Module 10 – History of Games for your first formal ECTS credit, which can be completed in just 30 minutes. By completing one module, your studies will be activated, and you will receive your first Transcript of Records.

Still in doubt? Come and visit our friendly and supportive IVGC.Course Discord community! Join over 10,000 game creation enthusiasts from more than 100 countries. Our server is open to anyone interested in the games industry—even if you are not yet enrolled in the course. You will find the course leader, student advisers, and helpful fellow students who can assist with study questions or share their opinions about the course. Click here to explore the community.

Course description:
Video games are one of the most exciting, lucrative, and rapidly evolving creative industries worldwide. Over the last 20 years, the industry has matured and diversified significantly, offering several key disciplines in which people can specialise. The most successful games are creative powerhouses, with revenue returns that far outweigh comparable products in other mediums. Examples include PUBG, the GTA series, Need for Speed, Temple Run, Angry Birds, and Clash of Clans, Fortnite, to name just a few massive success stories.

This course provides a beginner’s guide to hands-on game creation. The modules are designed to stand alone with individual deliverables, but they also interlink. A student completing all 35 ECTS credits will gain a basic understanding of the games industry and how games are developed.

The lectures cover topics such as an introduction to games and the games industry, data analytics, innovation, and history. After the foundational modules, you will begin developing your own game designs and creating games: a text-based adventure game, a card game, a mobile snake game, and, finally, a space shooter.

How You Will Study:
You will receive an invitation to the IVGC HETU/PIC Bundle on Teachable by email within one week of signing up.

All our materials can be found on Teachable, the learning platform we use for our course. You will watch a series of guided videos that cover each topic in depth. Additionally, some modules include supplementary learning resources, such as PDF presentations or PowerPoint files. For each module, you will need to complete an assignment. These may include quizzes on SurveyMonkey, writing essays and answering questions on a Google Form, or submitting deliverables such as 2D/3D art assets, or game builds as instructed in the videos. Key assets will be provided for students to download in the development modules. All the development tools used are available free of charge.

You will also acquire valuable life skills, such as how to authenticate your formal Transcript of Records (Certificate) and request recommendation letters (if needed, e.g., for further studies or interviews).

Moreover, by being socially active, you will develop important social skills, including how to engage with a game developer community, help others, collaborate as part of a team, discuss interesting topics, and improve your English language and cross-cultural communication skills. On top of that, you will make new friends from all over the world!

Learning Outcomes:
Students will learn about various aspects of the games industry, including the history of games, data analytics, innovation in games, and the fundamentals of game creation, 2D/3D art, and coding. They will gain insight into using the C# programming language with Visual Studio, build simple games in Unity 3D, and use professional digital art software such as Krita (digital painting) and Blender (3D graphics). All development tools used in our course are available free of charge.

How to Engage with the IVGC Community (Optional):
You can:

• Join our friendly and supportive Discord server to make friends with like-minded, game-loving students.
• Visit our Instagram page.
• Connect to our Telegram channel.
• Participate in one of our upcoming online webinars! We organise live events on a variety of topics related to the games industry every Tuesday. Read more about them in our newsletters (which you will regularly receive after enrolling in the course), where we also share the registration forms for the webinars. Attending is completely free of charge, and we frequently organise lectures with a diverse range of guest speakers who are experts in their field. It’s a great way to learn even more than what is provided in the course material and to ask any questions you might have directly to professionals.

Assessment:
After submitting your quizzes or deliverables, it may take up to 2 weeks for your work to be assessed. For essay modules, this can take up to 4 weeks. You will receive a confirmation once your work has been assessed. After each pass, you will receive an updated Transcript of Records, featuring all completed modules and earned credits, within approximately 2 weeks of completion. We do not use a grading system; assignments are evaluated on a pass/fail basis. In case of failure, you are allowed to retry.

If you need additional information or have any further questions, please email the Xamk Pulse Open University of Applied Sciences office at openstudies@xamk.fi.

Terms of Cancellation:
If you are unable to participate in the course, please let us know as soon as possible by sending an email to openstudies@xamk.fi.

Please note that there can be changes in the course details in terms of the timetable and teachers, for example.

South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences is audited by the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC).

Instructor biographies

Dr. Jan Storgårds: Course Leader, 6-time entrepreneur, Director of CADGI ltd. (Cambridge Academy of Games and Innovation) and Cambridge Gamechanger ltd.
He has over 25 years of experience working in the industry and academia with high technology companies and technology cluster development, including video games and gamification. He holds a Dr.Sc. in information systems science in computer game development from Aalto University, Finland. In his prior role as Sector Lead for Creative and Digital Industries at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, his responsibility was to engage ARU with Cambridge’s world-class technology cluster, including video games and gamification.

Before this role, he was a visiting research fellow and currently a mentor at Cambridge Judge Business School (University of Cambridge) working with start-ups and early-stage technology companies, including video game studios. He also evaluates European Commission funded multimillion SME grant proposals.

James Shepherd: CEO of Cypherdelic. Award winning creative executive. James has received Baftas and a Develop award for his outstanding executive work and has delivered multi-million selling products. 
As Head of the nDreams Studio, James was responsible for delivering cutting edge VR products, Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord (PSVR2/ Quest 2-3), Synapse (PSVR2, 77% Metacritic), Fracked (PSVR and Meta Quest 2-3, 71% Metacritic, 88% Quest Score) and Far Cry: Dive into Insanity. (Location based shooter).
Previously at Microsoft he ran the key Xbox One and Xbox live games community Upload, generating a 6.5 million user base, and over 10+ million views in the 12 months launch window. 
At Sony he had over 5 years’ experience as director of a multi-project development studio, releasing triple ’A’ products on all PlayStation platforms, equally at home with production and creative issues; directing the vision and strategic planning on a diverse range of game and non-game projects such as Upload, Heavenly Sword (PS3, 1.6m units, 79% Metacritic), Play-TV, Killzone Mercenary (PSVIta, 78% Metacritic ) and LittleBigPlanet (PSP, 2.5m units, 87% Metacritic). 

Matthew Dickson: CTO of Cypherdelic Limited. Over 10 years of coding experience on triple-A titles for Sony PlayStation, including Killzone 2, Little Big Planet and Heavenly Sword. He also developed and published the iOS game Super Jackfruit, including all art and game programming. Currently the Lead Programmer, with Polygon Treehouse, makers of Bafta nominated Roki (PC and Switch 76% Metacritic) and the upcoming release, Myth wrecked Ambrosia Island.
Matthew’s polymath expertise makes him ideally suited to delivering a game development course.

At IVGC, we’re proud to say that we’ve already had over 90,000 enrollments! 97% of course participants would recommend our course to friends and anyone interested.

Testimonials from IVGC students:

”Thank you and your team for making this course free and available to everyone, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it, coming from a city and country where there is absolutely no possibility to learn game development properly. You have done huge work, and it’s very inspiring to know dedicated people such as you. I’m enjoying your course already very much.”
– Kateryna from Ukraine –

”This was a great course to learn from. I learned a lot about the different processes of Video Games Creation, the tools used, the skillset required, the economical situation of Video Games and a lot more. On a smaller scale, I had the opportunity to learn programming language and use it in one of the many interesting modules, to learn different software usages including Krita, Blender and Unity and to make my own first Video Game!”
– Swapnil from India –

”I wanted to share this as some sort of letter, but I think that this message actually perfectly sums up what I feel right now and what this course has meant for me. I feel honored for having that message to be shared here. And yes, I aim to enroll into XAMK’s bachelor of Game Design; that’s going to be my beginning. I want to thank from the bottom of my heart Dr. Jan Storgards, Maarika Storgards, James Shepherd, Matthew Dickson and all the people who have collaborated with you, for the amazing work you have done and for the continuous support you give to all the students. This is truly the greatest free game design course there is out there. I’ll be looking forward to the next modules you will add to this course!  The road to become a great Game Dev starts by taking the first step, and if that step is completing this course, than it is one hell of a good step. Good luck to you all !”
– Andreas from Italy –

”Hei professor! I am extremely grateful that I did this course which not only helped me gain knowledge but also helped me progress towards my goals and made me more passionate about doing research on video games. I wanted to thank you for all the additional help that you provided and for all your quick and warm replies. I am delighted to inform you that I have been accepted into a University in the UK for further studies. I will keep you updated from time to time about my journey. Just in case, you have any new course, research or internship opportunity in the future please let me know. I would love to be a part of it. Once again, a special thanks to you , all the course instructors and the administrative staff at CADGI! Best wishes!
– Simar from India –

”Hey @everyone, I hope you are all doing well. I completed this course with 25 ECTS. As a result of taking this course at XAMK, I secured my first job in the video game industry last month as a Game Designer. I truly want to appreciate this Video Game Creation course at XAMK and I personally want to thank @Dr Jan Storgards Course Leader, Sir Matthew Dickson, and Sir James Shepherd for being great mentors and for helping me to get into the industry I was genuinely passionate about. It’s been a wonderful journey.”
– Reetesh from India –
 

”Growing up in India, I was crazy about video games, even though I couldn’t really play them. I spent hours watching gameplay videos on YouTube, especially from creators like theRadbrad. It was mind-blowing to see how games evolved – the graphics, the vast campaign worlds, and all the cool stuff in them. That’s when I had my ”Aha!” moment: I wanted to be a part of this fantastic gaming world.

High school and exam pressure had me very confused by the end of it, and I ended up picking informatics for a safer career path. But my heart still beat for game development.

Then one day, I stumbled upon the IVGC course on Facebook. It felt like fate. I decided to dedicate my entire summer to learning the ropes of game development, even if it meant juggling it with my studies.

I recently started reaching out to companies for internships, and an opportunity in Cambridge opened up through an email I sent to Dr. Storgards, even though I felt like it was a long shot. At the same time, a young game studio in Osijek, Croatia, got in touch, and it was a perfect match for my aspirations. This journey has been a rollercoaster, filled with uncertainty, excitement, and, finally, a dream-come-true moment.

I am immensely grateful to Dr.Storgards and the team for giving people like myself the opportunity to realize our passion and a brilliant starting point for it.”
– Aldric from Lithuania –