Games are a reflection of our world and help shape the way we see it. For children, games can be a way of learning fundamental interpersonal and problem-solving skills—and so the way games are designed has a very real impact on society. “There’s been a shift away from tangible, mechanical approaches to design and more exploration of aesthetics and vibes and how to design for those,” said Sherveen Uduwana, a game designer and project lead on “Midautumn” and an instructor at Code Coven, an accelerator for marginalized game developers. “Many more designers are moving away from trying to create wholly new systems and features and are finding ways to recontextualize pre-existing ideas in a way that feels specific to their game and feels compelling to players.”
The Degrees of the Future 2022 top Game Design programs are:
California State University, Chico | Chico, California
Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Cambridge, Massachusetts
New York University | New York, New York
Rochester Institute of Technology | Rochester, New York
University of California, Los Angeles | Los Angeles, California
University of Southern California | Los Angeles, California
University of Texas at Dallas | Richardson, Texas
University of Utah | Salt Lake City, Utah
West Virginia University | Morgantown, West Virginia
How did Gizmodo determine this year’s honorees? Check out the methodology or return to the full Degrees of the Future 2022 list.