Game Design Workshops and Bootcamps

Game design courses are online education with live classes that teach industry-relevant skills through expert-led lectures. Choose, compare, and buy the right course to start learning practical skills and get into the gaming industry at a fraction of the time and cost of a traditional school.

Whether you’re a student, seasoned designer, or developer switching lanes, you’ll find everything from beginner-friendly intros to advanced certified courses ranging from a few hours to in-depth multi-month training. Filter by discipline, skill level, or career goals, then match the right course to your path and earn the skills and credentials to move your career forward.

Bootcamps | Fall 2025
Enrollment is Open Until
October 25, 2025
Bootcamps | Summer 2025
Enrollment is Closed

Testimonials From Some of Our Bootcamps

Garreth: From Student to Pro Designer at Poly Haven
Ben: Beat Impostor Syndrome and Landed a Game Design Job
Rocket: From Theater to Game Design with Zero Experience
Jeremiah: Sr. Game Designer Gained New Mental Models

Who Should Buy a Game Design Course?

Successful industry professionals, college students, complete beginners, and other industry experts should all buy a game design course.

  1. Industry professionals take design courses to enhance their existing skills and gain new perspectives from other game design experts. Even highly experienced professionals can complement their process with insights from veterans who’ve overcome the unique design challenges behind some of the most popular and iconic games.
  2. College students should choose game design courses offering hands-on practical experience. The best courses for college students bridge the gap between academic theoretical concepts and practical game design skills.
  3. Beginner game designers benefit the most from structured step-by-step bootcamps. Completing GDS’s expert-led bootcamps provides beginners with industry-ready skills and their first portfolio project.
  4. Non-design professionals, such as programmers, artists, producers, and QA, take game design courses to understand designer workflows, processes, and challenges. This insight enhances cross-team communication, strengthens collaboration, and leads to more effective implementation. For career changers, it delivers the knowledge and frameworks needed to transition into design with confidence.
  5. Professionals in non-design roles use game design courses to understand the design side of the pipeline, and predict upcoming design challenges. Professionals looking to make a lateral move in the industry need to understand other design roles’ responsibilities and expectations.

Game design training strengthens every role on the team. Mastering the design fundamentals helps refine any designer’s skill set, giving them a competitive advantage and increasing their chances of landing a job.

What Game Design Courses Provide Certification?

Game Design Skills offers professional certificates that meet current industry needs. Each 12-week bootcamp provides certification built around practical design and development work. All GDS courses cover learning proven frameworks, solo or group workshops, and creating polished portfolio pieces.

GDS provides certificates that meet the employee reimbursement requirements for studios like Riot, Blizzard, and Epic for the training provided.

Certificate LinkedIn Without Caption

Certificates aren’t the main reason designers complete the courses, though. Students join to level up their skills and build a solid portfolio.

Mateusz Konrad Gorski’s portfolio for The Crystal City below is just one example of what GDS students can do.

Game design roles have more practical-based hiring processes than certificate-regulated industries like medicine or law. Studios vet for design process, hands-on experience, and portfolio quality over any certificate.

For complementary technical and artistic certifications that fall outside the scope of game design, the platforms below have many options.

  • Coursera & Udemy – Provide hundreds of small beginner-to-intermediate certificates in courses like Unreal Engine 5 for Beginners and Complete C# Unity Developer.
  • Unity & Unreal Engines – Official websites offer training as a Unity Certified 3D Artist and Unreal Engine Certified Professional, providing a deeper understanding of each engine.
  • Autodesk – Certifies artists through programs like the 3ds Max Certified Professional Certification for 3D modeling with 3ds Max.
  • Adobe – Manages Adobe Certified Expert ACE certifications for tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere via Certiport and Credly for digital art.
  • Schoolism and Computer Graphics Master Academy issue certificates in creative areas like Storyboarding for Animation and a Professional Certificate in Storyboarding for film.

Game Design Skills awards every student a certificate upon course completion, but the skills learned and projects built are far more important than any certificate. Every GDS course graduate walks away with both the confidence to navigate the hiring process and the skills to deliver results on the job.

Game design courses that offer a broad overview of the industry and teach fundamental design concepts are recommended for beginners.

Total beginners need a general introduction to the game industry. Platforms like Coursera and Udemy offer hundreds of short, entry-level video courses for beginners. Each course covers basic definitions and provides a high-level overview of the field.

The Build a Game Challenge Bootcamp is recommended for beginners who want hands-on practical experience. Build a Game Challenge shows students the progression from their first game idea all the way to a playable tabletop prototype. Ideation, prototyping, playtesting, collecting feedback, and iterating are all guided live by industry experts. Practical bootcamps like Build a Game let students make a full game without worrying about coding and create their first industry-quality portfolio piece.

Progression of Plantasia from GDS Game Challenge to Steam Release

Beginning designers should also take courses in at least one major game engine. Unity is widely used for 2D/3D games and supports visual scripting.

Unreal Engine features high-end visuals and the code-free Blueprints system.

Godot is lightweight, open-source, and easy to use. Free courses and paid options featuring hands-on guidance from expert designers are available, ranging from full, live bootcamps to 1- to 2-hour-long videos.

Engines Unity Unreal Godot

Game design courses give beginners the foundation needed to plan out an entire career path. Mastering the basics and trying out different engines helps beginners choose where to specialize. After learning the details of a specific engine, completing practical projects, and gaining experience working on a team, each student is well on the way to becoming an industry professional.

What Are the Best Game Development Courses for Professionals?

Game Design Skills bootcamps are ideal for professionals aiming to advance into senior design roles, transition to a new studio, or gain different perspectives . Each 12-week, expert-led, project-based program provides direct feedback from industry experts and opportunities to connect with over 7,000 game developers in the GDS community. The game design, game writing, and level design tracks teach the proven frameworks and processes used at leading studios such as Blizzard, Riot, Virtuos, Infinity Ward, and many more. 

Professionals equipped with these skills stand out when pursuing new jobs or seeking promotions.

Bootcamp instructors and contributors are seasoned experts behind some of the most iconic games at the industry’s most respected studios.

See Upcoming Bootcamps
Live Sessions With Industry Practitioners Guiding You Step by Step.

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    EXPERIENCE & BACKGROUND:

    [STUDIO] Blizzard Entertainment: Content, mechanics, and systems designer

    (Creator of Apex Legends & former Creative Director at Respawn)

    [GAME] World of Warcraft: MMORPG with 8.5 million average monthly players, won Gamer’s Choice Award – Fan Favorite MMORPG, VGX Award for Best PC Game, Best RPG, and Most Addictive Video Game.

    • Classic:
      • Designed Cosmos UI
      • Designed part of Raid Team for Naxxramas
    • Burning Crusade:
      • Designed the raid bosses Karazhan, Black Temple, Zul’Aman
      • Designed the Outlands content
      • Designed The Underbog including bosses:
        • Hungarfen, Ghaz’an, Swamplord Musel’ik, and The Black Stalker
      • Designed the Hellfire Ramparts final bosses Nazan & Vazruden
      • Designed the Return to Karazhan bosses: Attumen the Huntsman, Big Bad Wolf, Shades of Aran, Netherspite, Nightbane
    • Wrath of the Lich King:
      • Designed quest content, events and PvP areas of Wintergrasp
      • Designed Vehicle system
      • Designed the Death Knight talent trees
      • Designed the Lord Marrowgar raid
    • Cataclysm:
      • Designed quest content
      • Designed Deathwing Overworld encounters
      • Designed Morchok and Rhyolith raid fights
    • Mists of Pandaria: 
      • Overhauled the entire Warlock class – Best player rated version through all expansion packs
      • Designed pet battle combat engine and scripted client scene

    [GAME] StarCraft 2: Playtested and provided design feedback during prototyping and development

    [GAME] Diablo 3: Playtested and provided design feedback during prototyping and development

    [GAME] Overwatch: Playtested and provided design feedback during prototyping and development

    [GAME] Hearthstone: Playtested and provided design feedback during prototyping and development

    [STUDIO] Riot Games: Systems designer, in-studio game design instructor

    (Former Global Communications Lead for League of Legends)
    (Former Technical Game Designer at Riot Games)

    [GAME] League of Legends: Team-based strategy MOBA with 152 million average active monthly players, won The Game Award for Best Esports Game and BAFTA Best Persistent Game Award.

    • Redesigned Xerath Champion by interfacing with community
    • Reworked the support income system for season 4
    • Redesigned the Ward system
    • Assisted in development of new trinket system
    • Heavily expanded internal tools and features for design team
    • Improved UI indicators to improve clarity of allied behaviour

    [OTHER GAMES] Under NDA: Developed multiple unreleased projects in R&D

    Game Design Instructor: Coached and mentored associate designers on gameplay and mechanics

    [STUDIO] Moon Studios: Senior game designer

    (Former Lead Game Designer at Moon Studios)

    [GAME] Ori & The Will of The Wisps: 2m total players (423k people finished it) with average 92.8/100 ratings by 23 top game rating sites (including Steam and Nintendo Switch).

    • Designed the weapon and Shard systems
    • Worked on combat balance
    • Designed most of the User Interface

    [GAME] Unreleased RPG project

    • Designed core combat
    • High-level design content planning
    • Game systems design
    • Game design documentation
    • Gameplay systems engineering
    • Tools design
    • Photon Quantum implementation of gameplay

    [VC FUNDED STARTUP] SnackPass: Social food ordering platform with 500k active users $400m+ valuation

    [PROJECT] Tochi: Creative director (hybrid of game design, production and leading the product team)

    • Lead artists, engineers, and animators on the release the gamification system to incentivize long-term customers with social bonds and a shared experience through the app

    [CONSULTING] Atomech: Founder / Game Design Consultant

    [STUDIOS] Studio Pixanoh + 13 other indie game studios (under NDA):

    • Helped build, train and establish the design teams
    • Established unique combat niche and overall design philosophy
    • Tracked quality, consistency and feedback methods
    • Established company meeting structure and culture

    Game Design Keynotes:

    (Former Global Head of HR for Wargaming and Riot Games)
    • Tencent Studio
    • Wargaming
    • USC (University of Southern California)
    • RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology)
    • US AFCEA (Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association)
    • UFIEA (University of Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy)
    • West Gaming Foundation
    • Kyoto Computer Gakuin – Kyoto, Japan