We often get asked how students can prepare for their course, so help keep you busy over summer, our Course Directors have put together a list of activities you can do to get ready for September.
Video Game Design
Course Director: Sion Lenton
Over the duration of the course you’ll have the chance to meet with professionals from the games industry and work on briefs that are linked with our industry partners, including Sony!
Now would be a great time to start acquainting yourself with the activities of the games industry. On a daily basis, it’s worth consulting websites like Gamesindustry.biz and Gamasutra, to garner knowledge, analysing events and trends, to understand what’s going on and more importantly, why.
You could also use this time to practise with some of the technology you’ll be using on the course. Become fluent with all aspects of Office, but more importantly, pick up and learn the basics of game engines like Unity and Unreal. There’s a wealth of tutorials to be found on YouTube to get you started.
Getting your own gameplay demos up and running will definitely help you get ahead; try and also manage learning these engines like mini projects, so you’re doing games design and games production management at the same time!
Finally, you could also get a head start at the course reading list. Try attaining and familiarising yourself with any of the following:
- Byrne, E (2004). Game Level Design, Charles River Media; first edition
- Creswell, J. (2009) Research Design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Third edition. London: SAGE.
- Hunter, R. (2011). The Gamification Handbook – Everything You Need To Know About Gamification. Tebbo
- Koster R (2005) Theory of Fun for Game Design. Arizona: Paraglyph Press.
- Keith, C (2010). Agile Game Development with SCRUM (Addison-Wesley Signature). Addison Wesley; first edition
- Kremers, R. (2009). Level Design: Concept, Theory, and Practice. A K Peters/CRC Press; first edition
- Pereira, V (2014) Learning Unity 2D Game Development by Example. Birmingham: PACKT
- Roger S (2010). Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons
- Schell J (2014). The Art of Game Design: A Deck of Lenses, Second Edition. Schell Games LLC
- Wyman M.T. (2011) Making Great Games. Oxford: Focal Press
Video Game Development
Course Director: Zafar Qamar
The skills you learn on our BSc Video Game Development course will open up the doors to becoming a successful programmer in the Video Games industry. A good way to get started with this is to consider the games you’re playing these days and ask yourself some questions such as:
- Are you a Console, PC or Mobile gamer?
- Have you ever wondered how they made your favourite games - what made the developers come up with the game in the first place?
- How did they make the game fun? What are the compulsion loops that keep you playing?
- Did they use a Game Engine such as Unity or Unreal? What language did they use? Was it C# or C++ or something else altogether?
- How did they handle the collisions between objects? How did they create those explosions and particle effects?
You could also broaden your horizons by asking your friends or relatives for recommendations of things they’ve been playing and then think about these questions in reference to those.
It would also be worth having a play with some of the tools and engines you’ll be using on the course. If you’d like to get a head start, try your hand at C# by installing Unity from the Unity website and following some of the tutorials there.
Video Game Digital Art
Course Director: Sion Lenton
On the course you’ll learn a range new skills and art disciplines relevant and appropriate for careers in the field of video game development, such as concept, environment, character, GUI and animation. While you’re at home, why not look at some of the games you, or your friends are playing and think about questions such as:
- What is the aesthetic of this game? Is it realistic? Does it have an art style? Is there a difference?
- What do you like, or what do you not like about the characters, environment, and animation?
You could also use your time to practice drawing and applying your artistic skills, to prepare with foundation exercises that will underpin the artistry required when creating assets for video game development. For example:
- Keep/start a sketchbook, but focus on observational studies. This is your visual research document that will inform your future practice. So draw from life. Gesture, Anatomy, Perspective and Composition are all key principles to practise. Do some online life drawing classes if you can.
- Practise using 2D or 3D software. Experiment with software such as (2D) Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, SketchBook Pro or GIMP or (3D) Maya, Substance painter, Blender, Sculptris or Forger.
Finally, take a first look at Unreal Engine 5. The virtual world is about to change and we are looking forward to helping you embrace the processes and tools for this new adventure.
Filmmaking / Film and Screenwriting
Course Director: Shaun Magher and Andy Conway
As a Film student you will develop your awareness of key filmmaking / film and screenwriting debates, production practices and industry conventions. You could use this period of lockdown to channel your creativity and document your thoughts, feelings and experiences in response to the virus to make a short film, or mini script.
One institution you’ll get to know more of is the British Film Institute (BFI). The BFI National Archive holds the UK’s collection of film, television and moving image and they’re currently on the hunt for examples of online video that capture the national response and experience of coronavirus, to preserve for posterity.
If you do produce something and would like to share it, why not post it online on YouTube, Facebook or TikTok and submit it to the BFI’s Britain on Lockdown archive.
You could also take some time to familiarise yourself with what’s going on in the film industry at present and get some cinematography tips by checking out websites such as:
