Last week I got to interview Sam Henderson who was the runner up in the Rapid2D competition. Sam told me about how he came to Train2Game and how he found working with the engine and Windows 8.
You can listen to the interview here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1366288-train2game-student-sam-henderson-shares-his-prize-from-rapid2d
Or read the following transcript:
My name’s Sam Henderson, doing the Train2Game developer course and I live in Darlington.
Hi Sam, how you doing mate?
I’m good thanks
Excellent, so tell me who you are and what have you done lately?
Well at the moment just trying to be a games developer, went to university for 2 years, didn’t like it, went on Train2Game, learnt loads from that.
I understand you worked with the Rapid2D engine recently, you were part of the competition weren’t you?
Yeah
How did that go?
I came second, I was runner up.
Yeah and what did you have to do for the competition?
Just design games for Windows 8.
How did you find working with Rapid2D and Windows 8 and all of that?
A lot easier than I thought! It was difficult to get used to it but when I did get used to it, it was perfect to use. A lot easier than I thought it was going to be.
Excellent, so what sort of games did you make?
I made a Space Game, I used templates that they provided to us and just tried to edit them. I used a couple of quiz games based on the template they provided us with and I just went from there really.
You had to make a certain amount of games to enter didn’t you? How many?
Yeah it was 5 to enter then for every one you get an extra entry. I made I think it was twenty three in total.
That must have been quite some work!
Yeah, day and night!.
Yeah, who needs sleep!? So was that on your own you did that?
Yeah I was on my own.
You said you were at University and didn’t enjoy it that much. What was it about University that you weren’t into so much?
Um, because we were quite a big class, because games programming is quite popular, I didn’t get the support, the one to one support, I wanted and needed. So the lecturers came in, dealt with the people they liked and who stood out more to them but for people like me who stay back, stay quiet, through certain things, it was a bit harder for me to grasp everything but then I found Train2Game and I found everything a lot, lot easier, a lot more support, got the forum and got the Tutors. It was so much easier to use. In my own time as well.
How did you find out about Train2Game?
I think it was an ad through Facebook!
So how did you initially get into games development? What sparked off your interest for it?
Well my initial games interest was from when I was a kid, I had a lot of free time because I was in hospital quite a bit because I fell in a river and got an ear infection and lost hearing in my ear. So I was in and out of hospital every now and again and I had a games console to play while recovering. That sparked my interest in games and as I progressed through life I just wanted to do more with games and try and produce them myself and get more involved in development for them.
Excellent. So where would you like to end up working in the games industry?
Not sure! Anywhere that’s willing to take me really.
You haven’t got any ambitions to work at any of the big companies or anything like that?
Well I suppose probably my favourite one to work for would probably be Bethesda, working on the Fallout or The Elder Scroll games.
Yeah? They seem to be popular with the programmers because of just the amount of work that goes in to them must be quite appealing!
Yeah.
Alright, well thank you very much then Sam!
Thank you.
This was brought to my attention yesterday and it is amazing news for Train2Game students creating mobile games. Sony have announced they are waiving the publishing fee for PlayStation Mobile.
The Train2Game Blog 