I had the pleasure of interviewing Train2Game Development student Lauren Black last week. She told me how she got involved with Train2Game and the comic book she is working on, Sacred Wing.

The comic is an an 8 part story detailing specific points in the history of the universe, each point in time thrusts  a number of separate races into a situation that’s bigger than any of them.

You can find out more and keep up to date at www.SacredWing.com or www.bothersome.co.uk

You can hear the interview with Lauren here: https://audioboo.fm/boos/1675961-train2game-student-lauren-black-talks-to-t2g-radio

Or read the transcript below:

Hello there, my name is Lauren Black, I’m on the developer course and I’m from Middlesbrough.

Hi Lauren, how you doing?

I’m not too bad thanks, how are you?

I’m alright cheers. So tell me a bit about yourself?

Basically, I’ve just been working in the web development industry for quite a while now and a couple of years ago I decided that I’d had enough of that and that the game industry was the way to go for me.

So what did you do in the web industry before?

I did a lot of free lancing. I’d get a contract in now and then, they’d ask me to do a bit of security tightening, you know the odd bits and bobs. Every now and again I’d get a bigger contract to do something, it was just random bits and pieces.

So are you just primarily creating games now instead are you?

Instead yeah. I kind of figured that games would be a lot more interesting. I got this little letter through the door one day saying Train2Game so I thought, hey, i’ll go for that!

Excellent and are you happy with your choice?

Very much so! I’ve only do about half way through part two. I had to take a little break due to illness but I’ve learned a hell of a lot of it and it’s helped with the web side of things as well because it’s a transferable skill. The skills that you learn from the course can be used in other industries as well, so it doesn’t just lock you into games, it can help with a lot of other things as well.

Yeah? Have you been working on anything lately that you’ve been using your Train2Game course for?

Yeah! It’s helped me make a load of contacts in the industry. I worked a while back for a company called Iguana and they seemed to like me. Again that was around the time I got ill so I had to cut that short unfortunately. Like I say though, yeah I’ve made a load of contacts in the industry who have been helping me with this current project I’ve been working on called Sacred Wing. At the minute we are deciding to start from a comic book and we are going to be building a game a bit later on. So it’s a bit backwards from what other people are doing who are on the course who develop a game straight away but at the minute we are creating a comic to generate a bit of a fan base and then eventually we’ll be building a game on top of that.

Brilliant idea I reckon. I reckon it should do quite well!

Well I hope so!

So with the comic are you publishing it yourself or are you putting out on the internet? How do you want it to work?

It’s a bit of both really! We are putting it out on the internet for free first and then if we get a lot of hits and enough donations, because we are on a shoe string budget at the minute, so if we get a lot of interest then we will be doing a hard copy published which I’ll be publishing myself or perhaps even through a professional publisher. We’ll have to see.

What is the comic about?

What is it about? Now that’s a very good question because there’s a lot of things I don’t want to give away this early!

Ah right. I understand it’s a Sci Fi one isn’t it?

It’s a science fiction, it’s got a bit of fantasy in there, it’s got a bit of steam punk, you know all these elements that I’m hoping to bring out later on in the project. It’s very hard to see what’s there at the precise moment ’cause it’s very early on but hopefully there’s a lot of surprises that I can give to people.

Is there somewhere people can keep up to date with the bits that come out and stuff, have you got a website or a Facebook?

Absolutely! We’re available on www.SacredWing.com and also my personal blog www.bothersome.co.uk

Perfect! Well I’ll look forward to everything that’s coming out with that and I’m sure we will talk again soon.

I hope so. Thank you very much!