Game Design

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Our program examines the role of play in our culture and questions how games are used to entertain, educate, and create meaning.
No longer just popular entertainment, games are their own art form.

At MICA, we explore games from a unique perspective that can only be found at an art and design college. Our program examines the role of play in our culture and questions how games are used to entertain, educate, and create meaning.

Designed for students who are passionate about games as creative, fun, and expressive forms, the Game Design BFA major focuses on how games work technically and artistically. You'll learn to use narrative, design, art, sound, and code to create a cohesive game experience with original worlds, systems, and characters. Want a preview? Try out some of our current students' games!

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Game Design at MICA

STATE-OF-THE-ART MAKER SPACES

Inside MICA's Media Arts Community

MICA's Game Design majors are based in the JHU–MICA Film Centre, MICA's central location for media arts education and production. Students have access to professional production spaces, industry-standard equipment, and a broad community of filmmakers, animators, sound artists, and creative media practitioners.

Expanding the Game Design Industry

The JHU–MICA Film Centre brings together undergraduate and graduate students working across film and video, game design, interactive arts, and creative media production. This dynamic environment supports partnership and experimentation, encouraging both individual studio practice and cross-disciplinary work.

Why Study Game Design at MICA

As a Game Design major, you'll be part of MICA's collaborative media arts ecosystem. You'll study alongside undergraduate and graduate students in the JHU–MICA Film Centre, building connections across multiple media arts programs. Faculty mentors cultivate academic and creative growth, ensuring students thrive both inside and outside the classroom.

Game Design majors study and create in the JHU–MICA Film Centre, which offers hands-on access to extensive production and post-production resources. This includes a large sound stage for building sets, shooting with controlled lighting, or using a green screen in production. Our professional sound studio offers space for Foley work as well as space for recording, mixing, and mastering audio. A 49-seat screening room with HD projection and surround sound is used for classes, filmmaker lectures, digital video, 16 mm film, and game screenings.

The Film Centre houses a gear cage stocked with a broad range of equipment — from 16 mm cameras and Mini-DV cameras to heavy-duty production tripods, dollies, risers, and full lighting kits. On the audio side, students have a professional sound studio for use and can check out professional microphones (shotgun, wireless lavalier, and dynamic mics), mixer recorders, and equipment for location and studio sound capture.

For post-production and finishing, the Film Centre features dedicated high-definition editing suites with Mac computers, industry-standard monitors, and the full Adobe Suite and DaVinci Resolve Studio, plus a specialized workshop room for editing 16mm film.

This infrastructure supports a wide variety of media production—from narrative and documentary filmmaking, to video games, experimental media, and sound-driven work—providing students with both the tools and the space to realize professional-level projects in a fully equipped media-arts environment.

Through MICA’s Game Design curriculum, students build a comprehensive foundation in game engines, programming fundamentals, prototyping, iterative design, asset creation, narrative design, and team-based workflows that mirror professional production environments. These skills will support you as you develop a portfolio that demonstrates both your technical expertise and original creative vision.

Meanwhile, the program's customizable academic tracks allow you to choose from a curated set of courses from other departments that align with your creative and career goals in independent and commercial game development.

MICA prepares students for careers in commercial and independent game studios and expanding professional sectors that use games and simulation in cultural, educational, or applied contexts.

Through hands-on studios and collaborative, project-based coursework, you'll explore industry-standard design practices and develop technical and theoretical expertise. You'll graduate with a competitive portfolio that reflects your creative authorship, technical proficiency, and your ability to contribute meaningfully to both independent and commercial game projects. 

Alumni leave the program ready to pursue roles as Game Designers, Game Developers, Technical Artists, Technical Animators, 3D Animators for Games, Narrative Designers, Quest Designers, Sound Designers, Level Designers, and Systems Designers, among others.
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How to Apply to MICA

MICA's innovative curriculum, state-of-the-art facilities and world-class faculty come together to support a single purpose: provide a no-holds-barred education and experience that will prepare you to be a creative leader in the 21st century. If you would like to receive more information, please click on the link below to fill out a form.

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