Howdy, I've done web dev for 20 years and wanted to learn more about game design to help me get better at my game development hobby. I did a bunch of Coursera courses, but found that everyone rushed through it and didn't stick around for crits or forum discussions. I then looked around for a proper university thing where I would be taking it slowly with a cohort. I found a nice Indie Dev MA with Falmouth University which encouraged us to craft our own path (mine was game design, market analysis and marketing).
2 years later: finally finished, and built a nice network of codevelopers and industry professionals. I'm 43 this year, and a few others were my age or older. I submitted a week early due to summer holidays, and still got a distinction. (That doesn't matter to me, though, as the real proof in the pudding would be whether my games will sell or not.)
I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, and built strong friendships along the way, and even sent the staff a crate of cider, because they're so awesome.
My motivation to stick around and do the work was very strong, as I really do want to phase out webdev and do more gamedev. It's sooo much more creative and suited to me as an individual. If I have to sit in a meeting where someone bikesheds how to connect a database to a website one more time, I'm going to scream, so it had to happen.
My partner was onboard with it, and I could afford to (as a contractor) take the odd day off to do more masters work, which really helped, as it was part time at 20 hours per week.
If you subscribe to my RSS feed, I'll be writing a post mortem on the programme soon: https://juanuys.com
My main advice is to do it for you, and really be sure you'll have time and passion for it throughout. A few of my cohort realised that it took too much time, or they didn't like the critical reflection element of some of the modules, and gave up. So, also check exactly what the modules entail, what needs to be delivered, etc. E.g. some of the younger students were disappointed that they weren't going to be "taught" Unreal Engine , for instance, but rather had to maintain a blog and write about their own learnings (as is the nature with master of arts, as opposed to science).
2 years later: finally finished, and built a nice network of codevelopers and industry professionals. I'm 43 this year, and a few others were my age or older. I submitted a week early due to summer holidays, and still got a distinction. (That doesn't matter to me, though, as the real proof in the pudding would be whether my games will sell or not.)
I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, and built strong friendships along the way, and even sent the staff a crate of cider, because they're so awesome.
My motivation to stick around and do the work was very strong, as I really do want to phase out webdev and do more gamedev. It's sooo much more creative and suited to me as an individual. If I have to sit in a meeting where someone bikesheds how to connect a database to a website one more time, I'm going to scream, so it had to happen.
My partner was onboard with it, and I could afford to (as a contractor) take the odd day off to do more masters work, which really helped, as it was part time at 20 hours per week.
If you subscribe to my RSS feed, I'll be writing a post mortem on the programme soon: https://juanuys.com
My main advice is to do it for you, and really be sure you'll have time and passion for it throughout. A few of my cohort realised that it took too much time, or they didn't like the critical reflection element of some of the modules, and gave up. So, also check exactly what the modules entail, what needs to be delivered, etc. E.g. some of the younger students were disappointed that they weren't going to be "taught" Unreal Engine , for instance, but rather had to maintain a blog and write about their own learnings (as is the nature with master of arts, as opposed to science).