Level up for games development course

6 October 2010

Computer game short course gives Danish students a chance to demonstrate their skills.

The tuition over the week was modelled after a professional short course which forms part of the School’s existing portfolio of similar courses which focusing on the opportunity to provide expert knowledge in specialist subjects. The Danish students, aged 17-22, attended lectures and lab sessions in topics as diverse as:

History of computer entertainment across a number of decades
Current state of the UK games industry
Breaking into the games industry
Game-level design.

The last of these topics challenged small groups create their own professional-quality, first person shooter (FPS) 3D game level using the industry-standard Unreal Editor, as developed by Epic Games and used in titles such as Unreal Tournament and Gears Of War.

According to the short course instructor Dr Christos Gatzidis, "the course was very successful, with the Game IT college students demonstrating great aptitude in the subject area but also showing a real interest in pursuing a future higher education degree at Bournemouth University in our associated courses in the School, such as the BSc (Hons) in Games Technology."

Participating students Andreas and Mikkel enjoyed the whole experience of visiting the UK and the University in particular.

"Our expectations for the course were high and Christos managed to deliver," said Andreas. "We especially enjoyed the hands-on experience of developing our own games."

Mikkel added that he had a great week with "high calibre tutorials" and the "pivotal opportunity to use professional tools used by real developers to develop games".