Uclan's Games Design Alumni

We're really proud to introduce just some of our Game Design Alumni below featuring examples of their work and what they have to say about their study experience with us at Uclan.

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Aaron Foster, Graduate and recent Tutor on the games design course,
currently Artist/Games Designer at Lunar Software has just granted us permission to post this fantastic image from his game, 'Routine' as part of our Alumni feature.

Following graduation, Aaron spent 2 years working as a professional 3D Environment artist
for www.Eurocom.co.uk on projects such as G-Force and Disney Universe.
He moved on from there to pursue his love of game development as a whole and to
develop his own games.
You can see some of Aaron�s past work at
www.razorb-art.com

Lunar Software is an independent games company based in the UK that currently consists of 3 people, Aaron Foster, Artist, Jemma Hughes and Programmer, Pete Dissler.

We're all waiting with great excitement to see the release of 'Routine' which promises to be quite an  'experience' with it's Retro-Scifi Horror theme.

So delighted to have the Lunar Software poster here amongst out Hall of Game Fame :)

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Peter Field graduated from our Games course with a first class honours in Games Design 5 years ago. He's now a games designer at Naughty Dog in California which is one of the very top games studios in the world!

He's worked on some fantastic titles including Uncharted 3 and recently 'The Last of Us' which is featured in the image attached that we now have permission to use in an alumni banner!

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The White Paper Games team was initially formed by UCLan graduates on the BA and MA Games Design course and the BA Music Practise course.
White Paper Games is a small game development studio based in Manchester, UK. They're currently a team of 7  working on their first release as a studio.'Ether One' is a first person puzzle game for PC and Mac.
Pete Bottomley, Co-founder / Games Designer 1st Class BA Hons Games Design, Masters with Distinction MA Games Design.
Ben Hill, Co-founder / Games Designer 2.1 BA Hons Animation, Masters with Distinction MA Games Design.
Oliver Farrell, Environment Artist 1st Class BA Hons Games Design, Masters with Distinction MA Games Design.
James Burton, Technical Artist 1st Class BA Hons Games Design, Masters with Distinction MA Games Design.
Nathaniel-Jorden Apostol, Sound Design / Composition 2.1 BA Hons Music Practice

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Christian Fell  is currently working as a Concept Artist at Riot Games, Santa Monica, California.

Christian is German. He grew up in Dortmund until the age of 12, then moved to England where he studied Games design on the BA course at Uclan. 
Following graduation he worked as a concept artist for Travellers Tales Ltd. 
and then moved to in Shanghai to work for Gameloft.
Christian is very versatile and can produce a variety of artwork from 2D, 3D down to Sprite animation.

See his online portfolio here. 

 

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 Max Davenport
is a recent graduate, currently working as a contract Concept Artist
at Rare Ltd. - Microsoft Game Studios.
During his study at Uclan, Max had a work placement at Rare, which was a brilliant experience for him, which culminated in his current role with them.
You can see Max's artwork at the following link:
http://maxdavenportart.blogspot.co.uk/

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Paul Bannon is a 3D artist at TT-Fusion, Warner Bros. in Cheshire, where he recently
worked on LEGO City Undercover

You can see Paul's website at the following link:

http://www.xaku-designs.com/

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Alumni, Moh Mukhtar  creates 2D art for a Facebook game,'Village Life' which he designed and executed for Playdemic in Wilmslow.
Moh's is a versatile concept artist and his website can be found at the following link:

http://mohzart.carbonmade.com/ 

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Andy Kerr graduated from Uclan Games design course and initially worked as a Junior Artist at 'Travellers Tales Fusion' in Wilmslow, Cheshire UK. Following this he began work as a 3D artist at 'Gaia Technologies' developing assets fro ground breaking educational systems. Andy has been with Gaia in Bangor, North Wales, for several years now.

You can see some of his spectacular work here. 

http://andy-kerr-art.blogspot.com/

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Katie Clague completed her Games Design degree at Uclan and went on to work at  

Travellers Tales Ltd. as a Junior Level Construction Artist on their range of Lego game titles. 

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Alumni, David Woodman is Art Director at Travellers Tales Fusion

Dave Graduated from Uclan Games Design course in 2005 with great 3D modelling and digital painting skills and has worked in the games industry ever since.  

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These are just some of our talented and successful alumni.

There's lots more to be featured very soon.

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Introducing Pinterest to students as a visual research tool

In the last year, we have introduced Pinterest to our games design students as a visual research tool.
We've been exploring images from Pinterest's rich variety of sources to create annotated moodboards and we've been gathering and sharing imagery to inspire and inform design.

Our games design course began using Pinterest in Sept. 2012 as a means of storing and sharing images that inspire. At this point there were many images to be found that would spark the creative imagination but it seemed that few were directly connected with 'game art.' Since then we have seen an increase of games design/art related pins from around the world filling the screen at Pinterest.

We always encourage students to add a reference to their pins,
(Author, date)
In addition to the usual link to the original source, I would love to see a referencing tag option added to each pin which would use Harvard referencing format to cite and link to further sources of reading and study such as academic papers, books, journals, magazines, images etc.

This could either be integrated into Pinterest as it stands,
or their could be a special area within Pinterest for visually based academic research.

This would create a place where students could not only gather inspiration, but could openly share their research pathways with a direct IMMEDIACY that has never before been attempted within academic circles. This would appeal so strongly to young people who think in visual terms and love to work with digital networks.

Click on the image below to see our Games Design course Pinterest network as it currently stands.

Games Guru, Andy Gahan, visits Uclan Games Design course

Games design students at Uclan recently enjoyed a fantastically informative presentation from games Guru, Andy Gahan of The Pixel Bullies. 
The students loved this frank and valuable advice from Andy who has 25 years of experience at the top of the games industry.
Former, Senior Development Manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and previously Art & Outsource Manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (Evolution Studios),  
Andy has extensive experience, which he generously shared with us. 

Andy talked about indie mid developed game companies, and what it's like/ that it's possible to run your own company in the current environment. This was such an inspiration to our aspiring students!

A big 'thank you ' to Andy from us and also to Nicola Eagleton and her team, Faye Grima; Chris Lishman; Bhavnita Parekh; Victoria Bradley; Whitney Griffiths, from Uclan Public Relations and Marketing course, who organised the event.

You can see part of Andy's presentation on the link below.

The whole lecture can be heard at the SoundCloud link below thanks to student, Oli Hughes

Games Design course visit from Concept Games Artist, Shaun Mooney

Uclan Games Design course was really pleased to welcome one of our Alumni, Concept Games Artist, Shaun Mooney, to the studio recently for a fantastic workshop day.

Shaun who has worked for several big name games companies such as Atomhawk, TT-Fusion and currently Playdemic spent a full day with us.
He shared his extensive experience and expertise with the students through a practical demonstration followed by a portfolio surgery session with students from a variety of year groups. Students  found the experience very valuable.
You can link to Shaun's blog here.

You can see images of Shaun's workshop below.

 

Peter Field - Games Designer at Naughty Dog

Fantastic opportunity for Uclan Games Design students - in conversation with Peter Field,
games designer at Naughty Dog CA.
Peter is a graduate of the BA Games Design course at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, and has gone on to work on many popular game titles,
most recently 'Uncharted 3' and 'The Last of Us' with Naughty Dog in California.
Here, Peter shares his experience and advice about preparing for such a role and how to develop a portfolio and forge a great career in the industry.
Naturally, it was a real buzz for us all when Peter very generously took time out very early in the morning, on his holiday, to link up with us on Skype for a chat.
Click the image below to see the video of the QA session

Meet the Developer. Stephen Morris of Greenfly Studios

Uclan Games Design course recently ran a Skype QA session with Stephen Morris, Co-Director at Greenfly Studios

a small independent games company developing original titles for desktop and mobile platforms.

Luckily for us,  Games design tutor, Pete Bottomley, of WhitePaper Games introduced us to Stephen, so we were able to ask him to tune in on Skype for an afternoon chat session.
As the Technical Director / Lead programmer of a small company, Stephen gave students some really valuable advice about how to manage design work. He also has lots of useful ideas about networking.
We had an hour of entertaining and informative chatter which proved to be great inspiration for our games design students.

You can see the video of the QA session here:

Meet the Developer - Steven Thornton

Uclan Games Design course recently conducted a QA session with 
Steven Thornton, Games Designer at TT Fusion based in Wilmslow, Cheshire.

Big Thanks to Steve for hooking up on Skype and sharing his experience
as a games designer.
Steve is an MA Graduate from Uclan Games Design, so it's a great encouragement for students
to hear about his work in the industry and to hear what can be achieved.
Steve shared his knowledge of the development pipeline in creating design-based Pitch and
Games Design Documents.

Steve now has three years experience participating in team projects and working in a group environment as well as on individually driven projects.
In addition to a his knowledge of game balance, mechanics and design principles in solving
creative problems at work, Steve also participates in public speaking, verbal presentation and general organisation.

It was great to hear his answers to student questions on his role as a Games Designer.

See the YouTube footage here: