News & Events
UCSC Games & Playable Media Alum Wins NYX Game Award for Black White Panda
Yitong Hu, GPM Class of 2020, recently won an NYX Award in Game Design - Storyline for her linear narrative title, Black White Bear, now available on itch.io. We had the pleasure of interviewing Yitong to see what she’s been up to since graduating from the GPM MS...
UC Santa Cruz Games & Playable Media Alumni Event at GDC a Huge Success
The UC Santa Cruz Games and Playable Media MS program hosted a festive alumni event at the 2023 Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. Over 100 alumni, students, and industry supporters gathered near the Stone Stage at Yerba Buena Gardens to meet with old...
Collaboration with Tilt Five a Hit at AWE 2022
In collaboration with Tilt Five (T5), two teams from the Games and Playable Media MS Program created working prototypes for the Tilt Five® augmented reality gaming system, which was displayed at the recent Augmented World Expo USA (AWE) 2022. We sat down with...
Prof. Eddie Melcer Presents Mad Mixologist at the annual ICA Conference – Digital Artifacts Exhibition
Eddie Melcer, Vice Chair and Assistant Professor at UC Santa Cruz MS Serious Games program, will present Mad Mixologist at the annual ICA Conference in the Digital Artifacts Exhibition. This two-player VR alternative controller game requires a high degree of...
Alumni Spotlight: Amber Sargeant
Alumni Spotlight: Amber Sargeant Amber Sargeant is a recent graduate of UCSC’s Serious Games MS program. Amber earned her undergraduate degree in Computer Science: Computer Game Design from UCSC in 2020 and received her masters from UCSC in Serious Games in 2022. Her...
UC Santa Cruz MS Games Programs Soars in Annual Rankings
Animation Career Review has ranked UC Santa Cruz's graduate games programs, including Games & Playable Media and Serious Games, 5th nationally in its recently published list of Top 25 Game Design Master's Degree Programs in the US for 2022. Now in its 10th year...
From Serious Games Studios to Meta Internship, UX Skills Sharpened Here
Recently we sat down with Computational Media PhD student Sai Maram to discuss his upcoming internship as a Qualitative Researcher at Meta. As a first year student, Sai elected to take the Serious Games Studio classes, taught by Prof. Magy Seif El-Nasr, which are...
UCSC Secures $2 Million NSF Grant Utilizing AI Technology to Improve Research Education
Faculty from UC Santa Cruz's Serious Games and GPM Master's programs are part of a team that recently received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to test and launch a new version of StudyCrafter, an interactive platform for students to...
Virtual Open House a Success!
UC Santa Cruz's Games & Playable Media and Serious Games Professional MS degree programs' 2nd Annual Virtual Open House was a great success. If you missed attending this year, but are still interested in learning more about our programs and the application...
Wood Joints Cafe Wins Merit Award in Tencent Youth Game Designer Challenge
Congratulations to the Wootopia Studio Team from the UC Santa Cruz Serious Games Class of 2021. Wootopia won a Merit Award in the Tencent Youth Game Designer Challenge of 2021 for their innovative game and 2021 Capstone Project, Wood Joints Cafe. This title, based on...