Category Archives: Student

Train2Game News BAFTA breakthrough initiative

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BAFTABAFTA are currently accepting applications for their Breakthrough Brits initiative. In partnership with Burberry, they are looking for the British Film, TV and Gaming talent of tomorrow.

The company wants to encourage potential Breakthrough Brits across the UK to apply and to get those who think they might know a potential Breakthrough Brit to nominate them. BAFTA Breakthrough Brit’s will be working professionally in these industries and making a name for themselves in their chosen field. In essence, they’ll just be breaking through and we want to support them in that with a tailored programme of support, mentoring and career development.

Further information on Breakthrough Brits and how to apply can be found at: http://www.bafta.org/about/supporting-talent/breakthrough-brits,3784,BA.html. The deadline for applications is Monday 9 June 2014.

Also, the BAFTA UK Scholarship Programme is now accepting applications. It assists up to 10 talented UK nationals in need of financial support to study a post-graduate course in film, television or games in the UK and each BAFTA Scholar will receive up to £10,000 towards their course fees for a year, mentoring support from BAFTA members and free access to BAFTA events around the UK.

The deadline for applications is Monday 16 June and further information on how to apply can be found here.

Train2Game News NaturalMotion hiring spree

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CEO Torsten Reil says the tool maker and games studio wants to recruit a ‘sizeable’ number of staff as it aims to create ‘something truly amazing’ on mobile platforms

NaturalMotion has begun a “sizeable” recruitment drive intended to help the studio expand its offering of console-quality mobile games.

The games and tool maker is hiring for numerous positions at varying levels, ranging from game design to producers and product leads for its Oxford, London and Brighton studios, CEO Torsten Reil told Develop.

“We are attempting to create console-quality games on mobile that go way beyond what people have seen before. For that we need to have the best people in the industry,” Reil said.

“We’re looking to grow our teams with designers, programmers and project managers in order to achieve those goals. But we’re also looking to fill some of the gaps we have in our teams, some of which are already fully functional, but some of them aren’t yet.”

NaturalMotion is best known for its animation middleware Euphoria and Morpheme, which have been in used in the likes of GTA IV and BioShock Infinite respectively. Its in-house development teams have created successful mobile hits such as My Horse, Clumsy Ninja and CSR Racing.

While its middleware is built to handle the demands of console game development, Reil says its team sizes are unusually slim by comparison.

“Our team sizes are quite small compared to a console studio, usually 20 to 25 people. But the output is quality high-end, so we need to have the best people to achieve that.”

Reil said the reason devs should choose to work at NaturalMotion is because “we have ambition”.

He explained: “We try to do something truly amazing. And hopefully people can see than in our games – it’s not lip service.

“We really try to push the boundaries all the time. And that means that, working here, there’s a sense of purpose. This not a job just to earn money or to make a few nice games. This is a job to move millions and millions of people. And that is what drives us. And if we find people or talent who are hungry and who want to do that, I think it’s a great combination.”

In addition to display and online advertising, the UK developer also visits game events and hosts some of its own, such as one recently held for data scientists, where attendees gave talks and shared knowledge.

The studio, which currently employs more than 200 staff, is headquartered in Oxford and has studios in London, Brighton and San Francisco. It was acquired earlier this year by social game maker Zynga for £317m ($527m).

Train2Game News Meet the Students

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Train2GameWhilst at the 2014 Train2Game Game Jam there were several students who got interviewed about their time with Train2Game.

You can now view the students opinions in the document below! Enjoy what the Train2Game students had to say.

Train2Game News Kinect Sports Rival teardown

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kinect-rivalsThis year, for the first time, the Develop in Brighton Conference will devote a whole day in one room to a teardown of a single game – Rare’s Kinect Sports Rivals.

This highly interactive and innovative strand will reveal how each aspect of the game was achieved – and how each aspect’s progress was interrelated and coordinated.

Rare’s Kinect Sports Rivals is one of the studio’s most ambitious titles to date. Designed with unique motion control and avatar generation systems, the game presented unparalleled technical, artistic and production challenges and made huge demands on every creative discipline.

The teardown sessions will provide an unprecedented insight into the full working practices of one of the world’s greatest developers.

“Because of the usual time pressures, and the need to cover so many topics, it can be difficult to dive too deep for any length of time on a single issue. This year that’s changed with our first teardown strand that will get right under the skin of a single game and analyse in detail the ideas and processes that brought Rare’s Kinect Sports Rivals to life,” commented Ali Fearnley, Conference Director at Tandem Events.

Session 1 – Design: A walkthrough the two-year design and incubation process that Rare undertook to devise a game to take motion gaming to the next level. How can this experience help you make better games?

Session 2 – Art: Lifting the lid on Rare’s new high-fidelity character art style, the reimagining of Xbox LIVE Avatars, and meshing player likenesses with the in-game world of Kinect Sports Rivals.

Session 3 – Production: How do you take cutting-edge technology out of the lab and into a game for a platform that is still being finalised? How do you ensure design, art, and the latest in machine vision technology comes together in a game people want to play – on-time and on-target?

Session 4 – Programming: Like all slickly coded products gamers should never know it, but Kinect Sports Rivals is doing a bunch of clever stuff under the hood. Learn how Rare’s programmers rose to meet the challenges set by the game’s designers and art department.

The teardown session will take place in Room 3 and start at 12.15 on Thursday 10th July.

Develop in Brighton includes the following:

Tuesday 8 July Evolve Conference

Wednesday 9 July Develop Conference, Develop Expo, Indie Showcase and Boot Camp

Thursday 10 July Develop Conference, Develop Expo, Indie Dev Day and Showcase, Audio track

Registration is open now at www.developconference.com and Super Early Bird rates are available until midnight on Wednesday 7 May, saving up to £170 off a three day pass.

Train2Game News PlayExpo 2013

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PlayExpoFollowing in the high octane tracks of last year’s hugely successful event, the nation’s army of gamers, puzzle pros and arcade gurus will descend on Manchester’s EventCity 11-12 October as the most action packed and utterly immersive gaming expo bursts into multi-player life.

Officially launched today and set to be the largest multi-sensory video gaming event in the North of England, Play Expo is a high tech-meets-retro-extravaganza set across five fantastic zones. The two day event will also pit amateur gamers against the best in the country as the Classic Gaming Championship finals reach their nail biting conclusion in a duel to the death on the main stage. Final heats will take place on Saturday with the Grand Final scheduled for Sunday, where the UK’s greatest retro gamer will be crowned.

Meanwhile, visitors can delve deep into the world of their favourite TV and film franchises, take the driving seat with exclusive sneak previews or be amongst the first in the country to sit at the controls of some of the UK’s hottest under the radar indie games titles.

“The all-encompassing Play Expo is unlike any other gaming event on the planet,” said Andy Brown, show co-organiser. “Whether reliving childhood favourites with the Expo’s unique haul of arcade collectables, getting up close and personal with authentic film props or taking to the main stage in a movie-worthy crafted costume, Play Expo is totally unique.

“Now in our fifth year, we have developed five huge zones which we know hardcore gamers and enthusiastic amateurs alike will love and we have some truly outstanding concepts. Exclusive hardware, game launches, cult actors and characters from the best of TV and film franchises – think Doctor Who and Star Wars and then take it to a whole new level.”

Gamers can expect to immerse themselves in a clutch of no holds barred experiences at the show which was nominated for an MCV award earlier this year.

You can buy tickets and find out more at http://www.playexpo.net/

Train2Game News Unreal Engine 4 update

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Unreal Engine 4Epic Games has released the first major update to Unreal Engine 4 since its public launch as a $19 per month subscription-based service at the 2014 Game Developers Conference (GDC).

With the release of Unreal Engine 4.1, all subscribers who are registered Xbox or PlayStation developers, including members of the ID@Xbox independent developer program, can receive access to the engine’s complete source code for their respective console platforms, at no extra cost.

For the past two years, some of the world’s leading console developers have been using UE4 to build their next-generation games, so the widespread console availability of this engine is highly notable for the indie developer community.

The 4.1 update also includes SteamOS and Linux support, refined iOS and Android workflow, new game templates both for C++ programmers and designers using Blueprint visual scripting, and more than 100 improvements based on community feedback. In addition, Epic’s Elemental demo is now available for free for subscribers to download from the engine’s Marketplace so that developers can learn from its construction and use its assets in their own projects.

As a demonstration of UE4’s high-end console support, the engine includes “Shooter Game,” a sample project created by Epic and released for free on Marketplace.  The sample is now undergoing certification on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Driven by feedback from the community and informed by Epic’s experience building games such as “Fortnite,” Unreal Engine 4 is evolving at an incredible pace.  Its first month has seen thousands of development forks created on GitHub to improve and extend the engine in an open, collaborative manner.  Starting now, developers on GitHub can see Epic’s internal development process in real-time, with live-streaming source code updates.

To learn more about UE4 or to download the tools, visit www.unrealengine.com.

Train2Game News Maya LT 2015 on Steam

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Maya LT 2015Maya LT 2015 will be made available through Steam, Autodesk has announced. The feature set will allow Valve’s community of 65m gamers – as well as the developers and artists among them – use the animation and modelling tools to create 3D game assets.

These can then be used to personalise games and import user-created assets into compatible Steam titles, such as the hugely popular Dota 2. Assets created can also be used in any games users are developing.

Purchasing Maya LT through Steam will also give developers and gamers a full commercial Maya LT licence, allowing them to export any assets create with the tool to games for PC, console and mobile.

The licence will available to purchase through Steam on Tuesday, April 22nd.

“The Valve community is unique because it includes a very engaged mix of both gamers and developers working together to mod titles and generate content,” said Autodesk’s director of games solutions Frank Delise.

“We’re engaging with the community on day one by participating in forums, answering questions and offering custom tutorial content for Dota 2 fans. We can’t wait to try new things with the community and see how they push Maya LT to its limit and beyond.”

Train2Game News Student Studios work together

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Two Train2Game student studios have worked together for a mutually beneficial project.

The student studios studying with Train2Game have joined forces to release game Two Souls on free to play 3D gaming website: Gamonaut. A Lite version of the game developed by Derp Studios is exclusively available on Icey Monty’s popular gaming website.

The partnership has come together as both studios won a Swan PR Train2Game competition to gain free PR for a month.

Gamonaut developed by Icey Monty has around 1/2million plays on its site to date and its numbers are rapidly growing. Two Souls is one of Derp Studio’s many popular gaming releases, the full version of the game is now available to buy on Android and Windows 8 mobile, with planned release on iOS in the near future.

Nick Walker, Director, Icey Monty, said: “Two Souls has an original mechanic that makes it challenging and gives players a new experience. It’s perfect for the web and mobile markets. Derp has been brilliant, both in terms of getting the game ready and with the teams enthusiasm for the cooperation. We’re excited about giving Two Souls more outreach, and that ends up being mutually beneficial.”

Christopher Ledger, CEO, Derp Studios: “With John and Nick’s experience with building web games combined with our knowledge of games, I think we can cover a lot of audiences on both PC and mobile.  We’ve made a totally exclusive version of Two Souls for Gamonaut, dedicated to players using the keyboard. The levels are unique, so when players buy the game on mobile they will have fresh new content.”

These two joining forces is an excellent example of Train2Game students supporting one another to further their careers.

Two Souls is now available Available on Android
Pro:  Here
Lite:  Here

Available now on Windows PHONE 8:
Pro:  Here
Lite:  Here

Train2Game News Game Jam 2014 Results!

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The Train2Game Game Jam is over for another year and there was some top quality games created at the event this year.

The Judges; Andrew McCartney of Microsoft Ventures, Jon Hare of Sensible Software fame, Ian Johnson Apps world founder, Professor Carsten Maple from the University of Bedfordshire and Clive Robert of DR Studios began judging at 2pm on the Sunday and by 6pm they were ready to announce their decision.

There were three categories the teams could win in; Teamwork, Most innovative and Best Game.

Train2Game Principal Myra Smallman announced they couldn’t choose between two teams regarding the Teamwork category so two teams were victorious: Level X Games and Unity Dreamers.

Next up Andrew McCartney announced the winner of the most innovative game which was Horatio the Hamster by Basement Games. The team consisted of Train2Game Students:

Tabi ‘Fitsy’ Polson – Designer
Simon Corder – Level design and QA
Dan Knight – Developer
Lybert Mancedo – Artist
Ash ‘Little Dave’ Fayers – Developer

Finally Jon Hare was to announce the winner of the Best Game which was 1HP left with their game Nom! This made the day extra special for artist, Neil Gorman as it was also his birthday yesterday! The team consisted of Train2Game Students:

Nigel Clarke – Team Captain/Developer
Sam Hawkins – Game/Level Designer
Amanda Blatch – 3D/2D Artist
Daniele Morisco – Developer
Neil Gorman – 3D Artist/Animator

A massive congratulations to the winners and well done to all the students who took part it was a great weekend and I hope it was a good birthday for Neil Gorman!

You can enjoy the pictures from the final day of the 2014 Train2Game Game Jam in the gallery below:

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Train2Game News Game Jam 2014 Day Two

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Day two of the Train2Game 2014 Game Jam is well under way with all the teams working hard on their respective projects.

There are some excellent looking games starting to form through the midst of bleary eyed students who are starting to feel the effects of minor sleep deprivation! Through it all they are remaining determined and motivated ready for the all important judging tomorrow afternoon…

You can enjoy the photos from the second day of the 2014 Game Jam below:

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