Game Design students and alumni build groundbreaking new games, participate in national competitions, receive awards, and enjoy fulfilling careers in companies of all sizes.
Student Entrepreneurs
Ying Wang designed an augmented reality (AR) game as part of an independent study project in George Mason's Computer Game Design Program. She developed the concept and created 2D and 3D child-friendly animated characters. Wang, who was a student in Director Sang Nam’s GAME 399 Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Design course in Fall 2020, said she’s proud to see her app come to fruition, and she encourages children to do their own part to overcome this pandemic by following the simple steps featured in her app. Read her story.
Student Competitions
George Mason Game Design students have been invited to participate in both the Intel University Games Showcase and the E3 College Game Competition across multiple years. Students have also worked with incredible leaders from the serious game industry through our partnership with the Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI).
In 2018, two George Mason Computer Game Design students, Ryan Kennedy and Noah Bowden, were finalists at the E3 College Game Competition with their game Turbolance.
Download and play a copy of Turbolance.
Current Student Senior Expo
Every year, our Senior Expo gives current seniors the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and talent by working with a team to build a game. Throughout the semester, these teams bring their ideas to life through modeling, design, and testing until their final product is a fully ready game that anyone can play and test on their own computer.
Some games, like PolterGuest from the 2021 senior expo, have even gone on to see continued development and will soon be released on the gaming site Steam. The PolterGuest team includes a number of 2021 graduating seniors, including project lead Toni Conge, a video game programmer who has worked on a number of student projects; sound developer, Anna Burgay; and 3-D modeling and level design, Andrew DePorter.
Coming soon: Play Polterguest on Steam
Watch the PolterGuest Trailer
Student Team Collaboration
Goose on the Loose
Every semester, students in the Advanced Game Design Studio course collaborate to create a single game over the course of a semester. Likewise, they debut a work-in-progress version of their game in a public forum. in the Spring of 2021, a team of 17 students called BitMason, in two advanced game design classes designed and revealed their game, Goose on the Loose, an action platformer inspired by Yoshio Sakamoto’s Balloon Fight for the NES. Stephen Falco was the lead designer, and is currently teaching children about gaming at Stem exCEL.
George Mason Game Design Alumni Stand Out
George Mason Game Design alumni take their brilliant minds and incredible skills into fulfilling careers all over the country, in government agencies, graduate schools, contracting companies, public and private school systems, and well-known video game companies such as Bethesda Softworks, Big Huge Games, Citadel Studios, and Ready at Dawn Studios, whereas others decide to create their own companies.
Upon graduation in 2013, alumni Kyle Bishop, Alex Estep, and Stewart Van Buren realized that landing that first job out of college was not always that easy so decided to set up their own company called Little Arms Studios. Founder, Kyle Bishop, and his fellow alumni, started the company with the intent to make video games but then had a great opportunity to pivot into the training simulation/serious games space through first responder incident command training. Their company motto is "Our little arms are always open to big ideas!"
Take any and every opportunity you can and just keep creating. Learn from failed projects and keep pushing forward.
Computer Game Design alumni Rachel White and Matt Thomas have worked on Legends of Aria, an MMORPG (a massively multiplayer online role-playing game) that has been released to market and is still being actively developed. Its designing company, Citadel Studios, is an alumni of the Virginia Serious Game Institute.
Working at Catlilli Games
Catlilli Games is a local company building games “enhancing public awareness of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) concepts," employing several current George Mason students and alumni including: Game designer Keegan Herschel, Graphics artist Elizabeth Cherry, Game artist Lisa Harrison, Game designer/programmer Gabriel Lewis, and Former employee and game artist Oliver Steenman.
Several of their games are already published, such as Neuro Hero, Atomic Adventures, and Starsmith.
Motivational Speakers
George Mason alumna and award-winning game designer, Kayla Harris, MA Computer Game Design, 2020, returned to campus to speak to current game design students on what it takes to succeed in the game industry.
Kayla has worked at Big Huge Games for three years as Associate Game Designer on the game DomiNations. Before that she worked as a modeling and simulation engineer in R&D for Serious Games. She was a 2017 International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Scholar and a 2016 finalist at EA ESA AARP Social Game Jam for her game Neighbors.
Alumna Judith Corona, BFA Computer Game Design, returns to Mason to speak to current game design students. Judith shares her experiences working at Bethesda Softworks and advises students on what makes a great team member!