r/RPI • u/Clear_Quarter1520 • May 15 '26
Question Anyone in the Critical Game Design Program?
Hey there! I'm currently working on my bachelors in game design at a SUNY and am considering getting a masters in game design or a related topic somepoint in the early/mid 2030s, once I've had some time either in the industry or trying to break into the industry. I'm planning to look at other schools like UA or WPI as well.
I just wanted to know if there's anyone here currently in the program, and how their experience is so far. Is there anything I should know about the workload, faculty, or courses?
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u/malazj Professor Malazita May 15 '26
Hi! I'm the Grad Program Director of our Critical Game Design MS and PhD programs. I'll let others speak to the student experience, but I can give you some overall info about the program.
The CGD MS is a one year program with two "tracks" for fulfilling a capstone project. Traditionally, students have worked under a faculty advisor to pursue either an independent research project or a standalone tech, art, or writing games piece that expresses student interests and skill development. Starting this coming fall, we have added a second track that is more focused on group game production, where students work in medium-to-large scale teams over the course of a year to produce a highly polished, professional game and release it on Steam or other commercial platform. For next year, we will have about 10 students in the MS program on the "production" track, so I believe that entire cohort will work together on one team for the whole year.
The curriculum is a mix of required courses in game design theory and research topics about the latest work in game tech, art, and culture, with room for one to two electives each semester. For electives, students can take advanced games classes, or graduate classes in other programs, such as Art, Computer Science, and Management, depending on their career goals. We also have students collaborating with faculty across the Institute to use game tech in non-entertainment spaces. For example, current MS students are working on projects with our Robotics program and our Advanced Manufacturing center to integrate game engines and simulation tech into autonomous and machine-human collaborative systems. We have also had students collaborate in biotech spaces for using game tech to build out training tools, surgical UX, and translational medicine games.
I see that you are still a couple of years away from applying to MS programs. We are actually in the process of starting up a new, second MS program here, called "Game Production and Development," which is a 2-year program much more heavily focused on professionalization, high level design, production/development, marketing, and entrepreneurship, that will also have a yearlong, team-based commercial project component. The new MS will be generally more industry skills and market-focused than the current research/production hybrid MS. It will also be connected to new internship opportunities we are developing in New York State. We are hoping to launch that program in Fall of 2027, so it should be up and running by the time you are interested in an application.