Education and games.

Justin Parsler (who lectures at Brunel and is a senior designer at Mediatonic) wrote this rather fine article which is in Develop.

Have a read, it rather highlights some of the good things about 'Games Education' and Brunel's courses especially. It can be found here

(Brunel was also featured in Edge just recently here)

The End of the Beginning

Well, that went quickly! About a year ago I was traveling to Brunel University for the first time, ready to start my MA in Digital Games and now all of a sudden it's over. I haven't got the grade yet, that doesn't come until November-ish but my dissertation is in and now... What?

Dissertation Games Design Document

 

Well, it's time to start job hunting again. It's a daunting prospect. I haven't looked for a job for about 8 years and before that I was lucky enough to cascade from one thing to the next. I've never really used job-sites and this whole linked in malarkey is new to me as well! None the less it's an exciting prospect and was always the aim - that I would do the course and then try to find work... And here I am!

 

So my LinkedIn profile has been spruced up (I can be found here) and I've updated my cv as well. Knowing where to start is a bit more tricky but I've done some website trawling and I suppose we'll see what happens next...

 

Posted with Blogsy

Of Whether Pigs Have Wings

So the course is going well, it's deeply enjoyable, although I wish that I had 17 more days in the week to study everything that I'd like to get my head into! Life continues to be a little manic, I'm trying to get to some conferences when I can as well as the lectures, and am constantly on the look out for more games-y things I can do - if you have any suggestions then I would welcome them!

Lectures range from narrative in games to character design, from project management to how to deal with programmers (I am beginning to feel a bit sorry for them as they seem to get a hard time of it!)

I am reading more than I have for some time as I am trying to devour the essential reading and get in some reading of various texts that people describe as being 'really good read' (so far nobody has suggested any Mills and Boon).

There has been essays and presentations and at the moment the daunting task of designing our own essay title.

Everyone on the course is pretty great, there's been a lot of interesting talk about all sorts of games and general geek-ery. Still no karaoke but I haven't given in yet... It's a slight shame we only get to do one real piece of group work but I guess there's always the opportunity to do more during / later.

We have to learn how to use a game-making program called MMF which is absorbing and very user friendly, I am pottering around making little bits and pieces, and I might try and upload something here at some point (if that's even possible, if not then somewhere similar to here (I have no real idea how to upload a downloadable file to a blog so if there's a simple way then I'd welcome the advice!)

We see a lot of all of our lecturers which is great and they are all very approachable and helpful during times of lack of faith or just with generally helpful advice.

We had a visit from some old students which was both inspiring and practical - all of their advice was absorb as much as you can, make the most of everything and other similar sentiments. It was great to hear from people who were in our position a few years ago and are now, in a very real sense, 'doing it'.

As a list of things I am trying to learn a bit about that are not things on the course I'm learning how to use Microsoft Visio & Project, Maya and a bit about UDK, I am practising my photoshop skills (which are measly) and have learnt how to use Keynote and Presi, although Powerpoint remains a staple favourite. I'll probably practise a bit with some sort of art program at some point although it's never going to be my strong point. It's a lot about being a Renaissance Man it seems, and so anything I can pick up I will value. Suggestions welcome!

I've avoided buying Skyrim, because even though I would love to play it I fear it is just too much of a time sink at the moment. RIP Skyrim, see you some time next year...

Time Flies When You're...

... Working Really Hard.

So we're four weeks into the course at Brunel, already.  It's going great so far, and so in no particular order:

My journey in has got considerably more successful - I've discovered that there's a bus that goes almost directly to the university from almost directly outside my door.  This is quite a bonus and although it often gets me in very early it means that I have time to muse over things before we start and generally feel ready for the day, as well as sitting chatting with other people before we begin our class with some pretty good coffee!


On Wednesdays we have a design class which is deals with the practical elements and strategies of games design, it's a great class full of opinions and exercises.  Thursdays we have a theory class followed by a theory / business class.  It's allayed some of my fears so far with disucssion, note-taking and discussion of what the theory means in the 'real world' which is great.

On top of that we have at least three pieces of essential reading per week, which is normally a book and 2 papers or some variation of that.  There's a list of secondary reading too, which I would love to get to more of, but might realistically be something to look up more of later.  I'm learning to use MMF (multimedia fusion) which is a piece of software to help you deisgn games as well. 

That's before we get to 'assignment work' - so it's quite busy and taking a lot of time, but at the same time it's quite fulfilling and I am enjoying it a great deal,  I am massively looking forward to hearing some of the guest speakers and now looking forward to working in a team with some of the other students on the course on some of our assignments, we have a good year I think, and although it's going to be over all too soon I'm trying to take every opportunity on it that I can.

Here's hoping.

My Draft Essay 1 on which I've made 'a few' edits!

Introductory Lectures and Influences

So, today was the day, it has all begun and I've had my first lecture. It was a lecture on the history of games and was given by Steve Jackson. Now as I've mentioned elsewhere I grew up reading Fighting Fantasy Books, they are in many ways what started me on this path and led me to here so there is a beautiful synergy to Mr Jackson giving my first lecture. It was a great and interesting start on the history of games, ranging from some of the first games we know existed and ended with a neat tail into digital games.

Steve Jackson spoke extremely eloquently on all sorts of historical board games, card games and moved onto miniatures, war-games and roleplaying games. I know that I for one found it fascinating and a useful lead into the subject. Anecdotes and facts meshed together neatly and put the topic nicely in context. I set a lot of store in good board games / social non-digital games and enjoyed mentions of some old classics as well as games that have taken up many hours of my life! I look forward a great deal to hearing him speak more and seeing more of what has brought him to this stage of his involvement with the industry. I was also enamoured of the fact that he can talk about the games he was playing last night. Hopefully at some point we'll get to play some games with him!

In other news I've begun to understand the bus system a bit more and it's an easy (if early) journey! I'm now on my way home to read some Rules of Play (Salem and Zimmerman) before tomorrow's first theory lecture.

Finally of course (and how could I not mention this) there was a major event at the university today, for which there were signs everywhere. You have probably heard about it on the news, but if not, then I'm sorry you missed it... How bizarre.