Glasgow Caledonian University

The department of Applied Computer Games covers the subject areas of Computer Games Design, Computer Games Development, Computer Games Art & Animation, Digital Design and 3D Animation and Visualisation.

The Department has a blended approach to teaching including lecture based with tutorials and seminars. All programmes related closely with industry and there are many opportunities for students work with industrial partners and getting the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge in a real world and work scenario.

The department has developed a number of studio and other facilities that are closely aligned with current industrial and commercial resources in some cases the department has unique resources in the University community and are an improvement on industry standards.

The department maintains regular contact with industrial partners and some our graduates go on to work with many of them, our industrial partners include:

• DELTA DNA,
• EVERYWHERE,
• CHUNK,
• HANDPRINT GAMES,
• GCU,
• STEELY GLINT JAGX,
• ROCKSTAR,
• SERIOUS PAROD,
• SOLUIS,
• AXIS ANIMATION,
• ROCKSTAR CAD PEOPLE,
• RENDERSTUDIO,
• D14D,
• WIREFRAME 3D,
• MPC, B
• LAZING GRIFFIN STAS GROUP,
• NIKELODEON,
• DEEP SILVER DAMBUSTER,
• NET ENT GAMES,
• JAGX RINGTAIL STUDIOS,
• UHATCH,
• PRIME FOCUS WORL,
• STV CREATIVE,
• WARRACLE,
• SCOTTISH POWER,
• DOG DIGITAL,
• FRAME,
• THE DRUM,
• WE ARE HYDROGEN,
• STUDENT LOANS COMPANY,
• THE DRINK CABINET,
• DUBBERLY DESIGN OFFICE,
• AMV BBDO,
• OSTMODERN ADIMO,
• SAVED BY ROBOTS,
• FORE DIGITAL,
• IDEAGEN PLC,
• CLYDESDALE BANK,
• BBC.

Many students from our programmes go on to develop their own business ideas and successfully start-up businesses in Glasgow Caledonian University’s dedicated business start-up accelerator UHatch.

Programmes in the department are constantly monitored and regularly updated in order to provide students with current best practice in order to be industry and business ready.

The department also runs a successful postgraduate programme which provides further opportunity for personal development.

Our Staff are involved in many research projects:

ERASMUS FUNDED PROJECTS:

• GAME ON (Book about Serious Games – total budget about 50k Euros, GCU about 10k euros)
• LEVEL (A mobile game to teach school children arithmetic – total budget about 220k EUROS, GCU about 55k EUROS

MELLON FOUNDATION FUNDED PROJECT

• Gaming Climate Futures – a collaboration with Purdue University and Utrecht University.  We helped develop a game that enables climate change negotiators and diplomats to ‘step through’ up to 100 years of the consequences of their national commitments and see how their decisions affect global carbon emissions and temperature gains as well as whether they trigger ‘tipping points’ such as the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.  Was taken to Bonn and Katowice and played by international negotiators.
• Total funding around 100k USDollars – GCU about 20k dollars

NIHR FUNDED PROJECT

• Engaging Adolescents in Changing Behaviour (EACH-B) - Games for Health project.  We are part of complex multimode intervention in collaboration with the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at Southampton University.  GCU is responsible for designing and implementing the digital aspect of the intervention.  We have a game that helps teenagers engage in more physical activity and make changes to their diet (think Pokemon Go meets My Fitness Pal). 
• Funding – 2.2 million GBP – GCU about 330k GBP

Horizon 2020 Grant

• We assisted other universities who were awarded a large grant to investigate possible futures of EU food security. 

GCU developed (with design from Oxford University) an interactive digital visualiser that uses game technology to enable users to explore possible food security scenarios in an HTML5 format and web page

Head of Department

Professor Bruce Wood

T: +44 141 331 3503  E: b.wood@gcu.ac.uk