'Company roles' group project

Year 1 students were allocated groups to work in for the 'Company roles' project recently.

The Aim of the brief was to encourage learning outcomes where students could :

· Understand the different roles in a games company and express that in the most clear and concise way through the work they produce

· Work as a team

The task as a group was to choose one of four games companies and fill in the roles of various team members within that company, then design a small downloadable game that is themed to fit with that company’s current and past games. Students needed to do some research, develop the game idea and they were then asked to present it (as a group) to the class.

Below are images showing some of the work shown by the groups during the presentation. 

 

Student Successes: summer work experience at Mediatonic

Really 'Well done' to Emma Smith, one of our ist year students.
Emma has secured a place in London's Mediatonic games studios for work experience oer the summer.
Mediatonic are an independent developer based in the UK.
They design and build games for a range of digital platforms including Flash, Social, iPhone and PSN. They make cool things for and also publish their own games!
They also have an interesting blog at:
http://www.mediatonic.co.uk/blog/

Emma is great to have around and has loads of potential as a designer and artist, so she's bound to make the most of this opportunity to learn lots about games design.

Travellers Tales Designers visit the Games Design Course

We were lucky to have a visit recently from two of Travellers Tales Ltd top design people, Arthur Parsons and Stephen Sharples. Arthur has made several visits to Uclan over the last few years and it's a true incentive for the students to show him their work and receive feedback from someone in industry who is as experienced as Arthur.

We are proud to say that Stephen is an ex-student from Uclan games design and he's now a Lead designer at TT with credit on several titles.

Having them visit was a lovely way to spend the last class before the Easter holiday.

Student Successes: Games Design student Katie lands job at Travellers Tales

Katie Clague, one of our Games Deisgn students at Uclan completed her degree last year and is also studying for an M.A. in Games Design.
Katie recently started work at Travellers Tales and we are hearing good reports about her progress.
We are delighted that Katie has gained this great opportunity which gives her such a great start in her career.
Well done Kate ;-)

Student Success: placements at Vype Games

Twelve students from our 2nd year Games Design group at Uclan have been lucky enough to be offered work placement at Vype Games this year where they have had experience in designing and producing assets for a new game. Vype are Web 2.0 App developers who provide software development and website design for business, including custom built software on server, desktop or mobile devices to manage business and client information.They are currently developing a game and our students have been invited to design the visual assets for this.

Watch this space as the project develops for news on publication.

 

The students are being funded by the Uclan Futures scheme to have 6 days of work experience each, over a period of time. They've risen to the occasion brilliantly and we're really proud of the way that they have presented themselves professionally and organised themselves as a team to share updates and create an effective body of work. The main complaint being that if they catch the slow bus to Preston instead of the 'Express' on the way back they end up having to travel through 'Mordor' before they get home!

Here are just 4 of the 12 students involved in the work placement - Georgina, Max, Ellie and Will, pictured with Sergio, the games programmer at Vype Games.

Student Successes continued. Mobile Bullets Challenge 2011

This year winning team members have once again been chosen from the annual Black Bull mobile games design competition which involved 48 2nd Year Games Design students from Uclan. This resulted in some excellent design work and presentations.

Here are the winners from this year’s Mobile Bullets/Black Bull Challenge 2011.

1^st                           Thomas Moulton              Sock Ratisse

2^nd                     Jonathon Richardson       Crow Catcher

3^rd                      William Davies                 Bug Walk

Wild Card          Georgina Cronshaw         Inky Depths

Innovation         Natasha Bristoe               Digital You

The 2011 competition has taken a different form to previous years.  In the lead up to Preston Guild 2011, the management group working with the GUILD KEY steering group have decided the students will create a mobile game for the Guild Celebrations.  To do this, they have choosen an ‘A Team’ from the games design student presentations but will still work with Lancaster University programmers to develop the game.

This year, a further 4 ‘notables’ were added to the pot resulting in the presentation of 9 pitches for a GUILD KEY mobile game.  These additions were  from:

James Burton, Alex Belingham, Ethan McKinley-Rooke and Marcus Izaquias.

The competition was held on Tuesday, 3^rd May  at UCLan

 

        A panel of four expert judges were invited to choose the winning pitch which will be ‘worked up’ into the GUILD KEY game over Summer 2011 and scheduled for release in October 2011.  The panel also selected THREE UCLan students from the nine contestants who will work together with programming student(s) from Lancaster University in ONE team to make the game.  Mentoring and guidance from the Guild Key steering group will be provided throughout.

 From the finalists Will Davies and James Burton were selected to work with Georgina Cronshaw in developing her winning game pitch.   Two programming students from Lancaster University will be working with the UCLan students in completing this project.

The proposed completion date is October 2011.

Student Successes: Blitz games Studio placement

Andrea Wastlund, one of Uclan's 2nd year Games Design students, recently submitted a sample of her games design work as part of the application process for a place at an Open Day at Blitz Games studios.
This year Blitz Open Days were open to all second and third/final year students, studying any game course or game-releated course.
Since her vist to Blitz studios, Andrea has asked about a work placement opportunity and after being interviewed she is delighted to have been offered a placement for eleven months with the studio.
Andrea takes her work seriously and we are sure she will gain valuable experience from this opportunity and make the most of every minute.

If you're interested in a career in games, or you want more information about Blitz Open days, then you'll find help and support here
- Blitz Academy Online.