Games Design course featured in Edge Magazine

Exciting news! 
Journalist, Lee Hall, has featured a 3 page article in 'Edge Magazine' this week which high-lights the fantastic new game, Routine, by our lecturer, Aaron Foster - and there's also a nice write up about the games course at Uclan. 

Checkout the article by clicking on the image below.

Lancashire Evening Post Features news on Uclan's Games course

Following Jane Cull's successful launch of the Plinky Plonk App on Apple,
The Lancashire Evening Post spoke with Games Design tutors at Uclan to ask their views on App development and how students are getting more involved in this format.
Two of our students, Emma Smith and Hannah Spikings, were funded by John Hunter's
'Unite with Business' team at Futures, Uclan to provided artwork for the App.

Below is a link and a page from the Lancashire Evening Post where the article was featured in Oct. 2012.

Making music child�s play at Uclan

Making music child�s play - News & Events - University of Central Lancashire

School of Art, Design and Performance

Type of Story	News				Success
Discipline		Design
06.09.2012
Games Design students design Plinky Plonk App for ipad � now live
Two of our Games Design students has been working with �Jane Cull � and Bev Bush to design and develop an App for kiddies to have fun learning to play the piano. http://www.plinky-plonk.com/ Jane Cull was inspired to create Plinky Plonk by her 2 young children. The idea was to create a fun and engaging game that would teach children how to read music and play the piano. The App also works with a real piano to recognize the notes that are played. Jane is a working mum by day, who has taught herself how to write apps by night. Jane gained the highest mark in Grade 8 piano, age 6, playing in the National Youth Orchestra and later leading the Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra. She believes every child should have equal opportunity to develop musical talent. Jane can�t thank enough the considerable help from students and staff at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in developing Plinky Plonk. �It would not have been possible without them. Bev Bush, Senior lecturer and Games Design Course Leader became an advisor on the project and brought in UCLAN Students Emma Smith and Hannah Spikings to create the game graphics. � Students, Emma and Hannah found the experience very valuable in terms of working with a client in the real world and actually seeing a project come to fruition and be published as part of a professional platform.

 

Uclan Games Design course gets 90% in Unistats

The Uclan Games Design course scored a fantastic 90% overall in the Student National Unistats released recently. This is amongst the best marks in the country.
Unistats is an independent website offering a range of useful info and statistics on university courses.
You can compare scores across the range of courses across the country.
Compare shortlists here
For a closer look at the scores see the diagrams below.

'Routine', is one of the first titles to go through 'Greenlight' on Steam.

AWESOME NEWS...
Games designer and Tutor on our Games Design course at Uclan, Aaron Foster, and Jemma Hughes, (or very talented -  Lunar Software ) as they are known professionally, have just heard that their game, 'Routine', is one of the first titles to go through 'Greenlight' on Steam.
How AWESOME is that!?

For more info about the team see:

Also click link below for info on the Steam Greenlight

Uclan Games Students for 2012 test out boardgames

Our new academic term started this week at Uclan and we greeted a whole new bunch of Games design Students, who have spent time today checking out a great list of boardgames that we have acquired for the course. This was part of their research for a games design project - more results of this at the end of the week.

Even more Uclan Games design Graduate success!

Big Congratulations to recent Graduate, Lindsay Gurr who has begun work as a QA Tester at one of her all time favourite Games Developers...

Frontier Developments � Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, one of the worldwide games industry's leading independent developers.

They license their games via a number of top publishers as well as self-publishing on digital formats.
They are currently over 200 individuals, and are actively looking to recruit strong candidates, both graduate and industry experienced, in all areas to work on our exciting, diverse mix of projects on cutting-edge gaming platforms.

One of our previous Graduates, Tom Kewell, is also working at Frontier.
Great news to hear of more of our students working in the Industry :)

Lindsay Gurr

 Tom Kewell

More Games Design Graduates working in the Industry

Congratulations must go to several of our recent Games Design Graduates who are currently working as QA testers on highly popular titles as part of the team at Games Developer, TT_Fusion, UK.
Stu Allardes, Georgina Cronshaw, Marcus Izaquias and Mike Udall are all working at the Games Company right now, along with many other students from Uclan Games Design who have been there for a while. They all love the chance to work within a team on real projects and are learning lots about life in the games industry.
Thanks TT-Fusion for this fantastic opportunity for our Graduates :)

Stu and Marcus are pictured below along with David Howell who is now working as a Tech artist at Travellers Tales Ltd and Tasha Bristoe and Gavin Spencer who are about to start their MA in Games Design, Rob Higgins who is working as a 3D modeller at Totally Wicked and Will Davies who has been offered a place for his 3d modelling and level design, with an up and coming Indie team.

Georgina is enjoying her work as a QA tester

Well done to all

UCLan student talent recognised by computer games giant

Games Design student 22-year-old Alex Bellingham has completed ground breaking research into the use of 3D interfaces in gaming for his final year project at the University.

 

Alex�s research focuses on a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows people to interact with the game through images instead of text commands.  He created a GUI for a racing game entitled �Nitrogen� and has received acclaim from industry professionals at SCEE. 

Simon Benson, Senior Development Manager SCEE, commented: �Alex�s portfolio really pushes boundaries and his innovative concepts show an excellent understanding of design.

His work in this new field of 3D graphics design is unique and is way ahead of many industry projects.� 
Click image below to see Alex's portfolio.
 

 

Click image above for more...

Two more 2012 Uclan Games Design Graduates working in Industry

Congratulations must go to two more of our fine Uclan Games Design graduates from year 2012 for securing work in the Industry.
 David Howell has just landed a fantastic position at Travellers Tales in Knutsford as a member of the Tech Art team. David will learn so much at Travellers Tales, it's a great environment to work in. Big Congratulations to him and we know he'll love every minute there.

2012 Uclan Games Design Graduates working in Industry

Graduate, Rob Higgins, has now been working as a digital artist and 3d modeller for 'Totally Wicked' in Darwen since his degree show over a month ago and he loves all the creative challenges they have offered him. Higgins has made several 3d models for them already. The company also have an interesting workshop...featuring rubber masks making
Totally Wicked - Mitch' Shop of Horrors

As part of his degree show, Higgins, (as he's affectionately known) created a 3D rail gun prop model and printed it in 3D. It's since been coveted by many admirers :)

Max Davenport is now CSG Concept Artist

Congratulations to Max Davenport who is now working at 'Rare Ltd' as a contract concept artist, following up an intern-ship he did there during his time as a student.

Specialities : Concept art, illustration

Rare Ltd. has a history of award-winning franchises on multiple platforms stretching back through three decades of gaming, from the Ultimate: Play the Game years all the way up to Kinect Sports via Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye, Rare remains on the leading edge of high-quality entertainment and innovation. Rare is based in the Midlands, UK. (LinkedIn, 2012)

Aaron Foster interview

Aaron Foster interview
Games designer and Tutor for Uclan Games Design course, Aaron Foster, discusses his thoughts on gaming with 'Gamers Hideout' and gives some insight into his up and coming title, 'Routine'

See:

Also see: Shacknews

And....For stunning visuals from the up and coming game
see:

White Paper Games Announce �Ether� | The Indie Game Magazine

White Paper Games Announce �Ether� | The Indie Game Magazine - Indie Game Reviews, Previews, News & Downloads

Ether is from the White Paper Games Team which includes our very own tutors, Pete Bottomley (Uclan) and Ben Hill (Futureworks) plus Uclan Games design Graduates, Oliver Farrell and James Burton with NJ Apostel, Uclan Music Graduate looking after sound.
What a team !
'Every once in a while a game comes along that hits you with a vivid art style and intriguing design at a hundred miles per hour. Say hello to Ben Hill and Pete Bottomley � collectively known as White Paper Games � and their d�but title Ether.'

See the trailer here.

Find out more about the game at http://www.ether-game.com

Creative Festival Design Award

On 15th June 2012, UCLan Games Design student and recent first class graduate, Alex Bellingham, was selected out of many contenders within the 'Design' area of the School of Art, Design and Performance at UCLan, to receive the Creative Festival Design Award.
Alex was presented with a prestigious glass trophy by Vice Chancellor, Dr. Malcolm McVicar.

Congratulations to Alex.
This is a great start to Alex's plans to develop his study further on our MA Games Design course.
Below are some images from the Award ceremony.