TED: We can save the World through Games!

I can write a whole story about this little speech your about to see here but you will be mush better off by watching it your self and discus your thoughts here! I just think she is really on to something!

IGAD Breda Is A Game Design School Like No Other

Today Kevin and I (Maikel) traveled to Breda, an old town in the Netherlands; we had been invited by a teacher from a school there to have a look around. After battling a windy and rainy day on my motorbike with Kevin holding on for dear life, we arrived at the NHTV International University of Applied Sciences. A branch of this University is called IGAD, which stands for International Game Architecture and Design, and it is at this department of the NHTV that the teacher Stefano Gualeni lectures. When we arrived,  Stefano was eagerly waiting to give us our tour of the faculty.

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The Life of a Game Development Student

Since I’ve started studying game development my life has been much more hectic and stressful and my free time has been reduced to roughly non-existent.  Now, I can’t tell you what life is like for every student studying game development because obviously I have no idea how other people live, but what I can illustrate for you is what daily life is like for me and my fellow classmates, from what I observe around the school building.

Well, I assume (from many encounters with many different ignorant people) that many imagine studying game Read more

Column Revisited: Maiky NiSuTe Is Getting Gray.

It was out of boredom working for the army some technicians were trying some stuff out on the new super computers they had. Twitching and turning buttons and dials on a room filling computer that had the same technology as an average Casio watch of nowadays. It was right in the cold war right after the Second World War. Read more

What is a game design student to do?

Just last week, i entered the fourth and last year in what would be considered college in the US; my game design study. This year will prove to be over really fast, with 6 months of work experience, 3 months of prepping for a fictive final project, and 3 actually executing it. But then what?

I mean, over here we have SAE, running Quantm in Amsterdam which is offering a degree in game programming or one in game artist and animation, then there’s one in Utrecht, which is more the designer side of things, mostly theoretical, they go deeper into how you come up with a good game. But there are near to no jobs in this, so that’s not too interesting. Finally there’s the one in Breda, which is run by a bunch of pros, so i’ve heard, but i also heard a bunch of negative things. But SAE, for instance charges like 12k in euros..

And if that wasn’t enough, it seems that the industry isn’t too keen on the new game students, EA being a big one, that has so far hired only 2 students in the last 3 years, at least thats what develop is reporting.

Me and the people in my class who are serious about making games are trying to team up and go to one school together, and we might just set up our own studio if things end up right, but still, as a game design student, you can really go nearly all possible directions within the ICT sector, you can opt to move to design, multimedia, 3d animation, graphics, etc, or move more towards the programming, multimedia, web design, application developer, and others, there are so many interesting things out there that seem soo cool, so what do you do, when it’s that time again to go look for a new school?

Interesting enough, it seems that the school that i will be leaving in a year or so, if in fact one of the best, but with us being the fist to attend and shape it, we obviously had the crappiest education, since school still had to try certain things out. Being the first was definitely a disadvantage.

Personally, i have, and have had a whole range of interrests, including webdesign, graphical design, 3d modeling, game and application programming, but also anything that’s related to making film and video, god so many choices!

Right now i have like 3 assignments that have to get done really soon ( asap to be honest ) before i can even start my 4th year, which, as i said, started this week. So im working overtime on as many projects at once as i can to get things done in time. Funny how you get inspired to write a little at the strangest moments!

Oh well, i’ll just let it all happen and see what things turn out like, but if you have a business, know that the students of game design at the ROC A12 in Ede, the Netherlands are looking for game projects to take on for our final, might want to send me a mail if interrested.