When we’re focussing on outreach, we seek to build worldwide connections and promote the exchange of knowledge. We want to ensure our students have the best learning opportunities by inviting industry professionals to conduct workshops and share insights about their projects and work processes. Among the numerous speakers who have visited the campus, we would like to highlight two of our recent guests.
Simon Trümpler
Renowned for his blog "Simon Schreibt" and YouTube channel, is widely recognized for sharing valuable tips, tricks, and advanced technical art techniques used in the video game industry. With 17 years of industry experience, Simon has dedicated the past 7 years working as a full-time VFX artist.
The focal point of his lecture was the "Super Duper Shader" and its application in the student’s ongoing and future projects. Using his own project, "The Unreal Stencil Dragon," he exemplified the implementation of the master shader by collaboratively creating three simple examples with our students. Additionally, he demonstrated the fundamentals of RFX shaders by constructing a basic fire shader from scratch.
In addition to the talk, Simon also took the time to review and playtest our students' game projects, and he was thoroughly impressed by their exceptional work.
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is a popular content creator known for his YouTube channel, “Game Maker's Toolkit." On his channel, he provides insightful analysis and commentary on various aspects of game design, including mechanics, level design, and storytelling.
During his talk, Mark provided an introduction to game analysis and shared invaluable insights into game design. This served as a valuable opportunity for students to gain a deeper comprehension of the significance of discovery and iteration in creative design processes.
Mark emphasized that these two elements are fundamental for creating successful and captivating experiences. Embracing exploration and maintaining a willingness to iterate on ideas, allows designers to break free from conventional patterns and enables designers to discover new gameplay mechanics, enhance level designs, and elevate overall player engagement.
He introduced the MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) model as a powerful and versatile framework for dissecting and understanding games. By examining the core mechanics, the emergent dynamics, and the player's aesthetic experience (emotional connection), prospective designers and developers can gain profound insights into the design choices and player engagement, and have a better footing for applying such concepts to their own games. Furthermore, Brown provided a roadmap on how to connect these elements together, and to anchor them with the basic target emotional core, creating a more immersive and impactful gaming experience.
We remain eager to continue hosting inspiring talks and welcoming more guests to our campus in the future. With that, we are immensely grateful for our guests to share their knowledge and insights with our students. Broadening horizons and nurturing a deeper understanding of various subjects.