🎮 What can you expect from the Fontys ICT Game Design & Development (GDD) track?

Our Game Design and Development track invites you to really understand why games are designed the way they are and to get hands-on experience with designing and creating your own games with the newest technologies. We aim to broaden your skill set as a software engineer (in using game engines) or as a user experience designer. You also get the chance to see how a game design perspective fits in challenges that industry partners have.

We strive to be an open and welcoming community for both students and teachers. Fun and playing is of course integral in how we approach everything. But we’re also dead serious about what we’re doing.

Play hard and work hard!

🧨 S2 - Game Development (NEW NEW NEW)

From September 2025, a new semester will open up for students. This semester will focus on basic Game Development: learning programming using game engines and working towards playful interactions.

🕹️ S3/4 - Game Design

In Game Design, we transform you from avid gamers into daring game creators. A key initial step involves critically analyzing your favorite games to understand their design and what evokes your feelings towards them. You’ll embark on the design process, beginning with the type of fun or experience you aim to deliver to players, ending with establishing the necessary game mechanics.

You solidify this in a game design document and from there you work towards a playable demo. User testing is done in various open playtesting events that we organize to validate your design. The culmination of this phase is a playable demo that you can share and enjoy with friends, along with an exciting gameplay trailer video.

Discover the games created by our students on our Fontys-GDT itch.io page.

Projects

  • Crash Course (individual) - A one week guided course to get you up to speed with Unity and C#.
  • Game Pie (group) - A short group project accompanying the heavy theoretical load of game design
  • Your Own Game (duo) - A free to choose duo game project where you apply your newly acquired game design and technology inventory
  • Industry Project (group) - Oh no! Now an external client expects you to create a game fitting their challenge. The client is often not a game expert or in the entainment industry, and so it is your job to show how a game can be of great value to them.

🚀 S6/7 - Game Production

Game Production builds upon your Game Development and Game Design experience, elevating it to a more professional level. You’ll prepare for a Dragons’ Den event, pitching your game concept to industry experts. This demands a more professional structured approach and project scoping to produce a vertical slice—a polished yet limited segment of your game—in 10 weeks. Alongside a compelling pitch and playable demo, some market research might just persuade the Dragons to support the continuation of your game’s development.

The semester also offers an opportunity for an in-depth exploration of a chosen topic, allowing you to specialize and contemplate your focus for the remainder of your studies at Fontys ICT.

Projects

  • Wicked Devices (group) - A one week GDT refresher and team building activity.
  • Your Own Game Studio (group) - A group project for a free to choose game.
  • Industry Project (group) - Oh no, even more clients! Industry partners pose even more complex challenges that you as a game studio are invited to tackle. Again, more often than not, this will be in a serious game or even more professional non-game contexts.
  • Deep Dive (individual) - A two-week deep dive into a specialized topic of your choosing to show research skills, and with a focus of bringing something to the community such as a tool, editor or asset pack.

🤔 Frequently Asked Questions

How much and what kind of programming is involved?

As for all profiles and specializations in the field of ICT, we expect you to do a fair share of programming. You cannot pass the semester with just the design or audiovisual aspects of game development. We expect you to be able to realize a design in a game engine. For Unity this means using C#, for Unreal C++ or Visual Blueprinting.

While using a game engine with a visual editor (such as Unity, Unreal, and Godot) reduces the amount of boilerplate coding and scaffolding of the core game loop, you will still need to script most of the interactivity yourself. This means applying basic (OOP) programming patterns, such as object pooling and listeners. In addition, you are required to work with code related tools such as (git) version control.

In the Advanced semester, we expect even more programming baggage, so that you can also create your own tools or plugins for the game engine and work with more complex patterns such as finite state machines and behavior trees.

Can I do Game Production without Game Design and Game Development?

There are no official restriction on entering Game Production without Game Design. However, Game Design introduces you to a new way of looking at user experience design, of writing devlogs for your portfolio, and ways of analyzing and designing games. In addition, we expect a decent experience with Unity (or another relevant engine). These skills are not easily picked up automatically along the way.

Nonetheless, if you feel you have a bit of hands-on experience in working with a game engine or other aspects of game design and are very motivated, you should just join anyway.

Do I (have to) learn 3D modelling or pixel arting?

In your learning outcomes (what you need to show to pass the semester), we state that you should be able to find, adapt, or create assets that fit the mood and setting of your game.

This means that we encourage but do not require you to do any 3D modelling. We also do not give lessons in specific tools such as Blender. You are allowed to use existing, free (or paid) asset packs to populate your world.

However, in many games you will need to change assets that you find or add animations, and rigging of characters. We therefore do offer the assistance of teachers with 3D expertise, including workshops and office hours help.

What kind of industry partners do you work with?

We usually work with partners that want to create a positive impact on society. While some partners create entainment products, more often than not, they are more in the market of serious games, education, health, or training. Take a look at previous project briefings by our partners to get a feel for the type of projects offered.

Do I work with VR?

It is possible, depending on your own game concept or industry partner. VR software technology overlaps a lot with game technology. If you want to go deeper into VR or its siblings AR/MR, you can also join the Fontys ICT - XR Minor. Many students breeze through the specialization without touching VR, so usually it is not required.

Does GDT prepare me for a (AAA) game industry career?

No, not without extra effort from you. Most AAA game studios prefer applicants with a strong specialized portfolio. There are schools that offer full 4-year Game Design education with ample opportunity to specialize and build up a portfolio geared towards a career in larger game studios. While there are motivated students who manage to find an internship and career in larger game studios, do not expect your portfolio to be enough after finishing the specialization with a passing grade.

You will have enough baggage to start a serious career in indie development, but know that supporting yourself as a starting indie developer is tough. In the Eindhoven region, you do find a lot of companies working on serious games (games that have additional goals other than pure entertainment) or combine serious game development with a small entertainment division.

Will I destroy my chances on a career in any other field of ICT with GDT?

Not at all! Game Design looks good on your CV. Know that game technologies such as Unity and Unreal are used in many companies and applications outside the games industry. Also, Game Design offers an alternative perspective on the field of User Experience Design which gives you an advantage over traditional UX designers. Whether you pursue a career in (business) software development, UX, XR (AR/VR/MR), or any field in ICT, you do not limit yourself but rather broaden your options.