University News Last updated 10 August 2011
Two iPhone games produced over just 12 working days during Gamer Camp: Nano a month-long, games developer training course at Birmingham City University – are now available for free download from the iTunes App Store.
‘They Came From the Deep’ and ‘Aliens vs. Humans’ were created by thirteen trainee artists and programmers working together in teams, and have now been approved by Apple for inclusion on the App Store.
“In terms of work produced in a month, it's been amazing. It’s a really good opportunity to create a game in such as short space of time,” says Tommy , one of the graduates from Gamer Camp: Nano. “It's probably the best month you could invest in, in terms of what you get out of it.”
The one month ‘Nano’ course is a scaled down version of the full, 12 month long, Masters version of the course, Gamer Camp: Pro, which starts in September, and has only three places remaining.
“Gamer Camp: Pro has been designed from the ground-up by developers such as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), Blitz Games Studios, Codemasters, FreeStyleGames and Rare, to recreate a graduate’s first year in the games industry, culminating in a PlayStation®3 game to be potentially published on the PlayStation® Network,” says Gamer Camp Operations Director Oliver Williams.
Those looking to apply to any of the Gamer Camp courses can do so online.
Also being launched this month is Gamer Camp: Mini, which lets trainees study the first 3 or 8 months of Gamer Camp: Pro to receive a Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma from Birmingham City University.
“We’ve found the shorter period of Gamer Camp: Mini is really striking a chord with freelance games artists and programmers,” says Oliver. “They can gain real postgraduate qualifications while building up tangible experience during downtime in their workloads.”
Each qualification on Mini is worth 60 credits and costs £2,700, effectively allowing students to study Gamer Camp: Pro’s full MA or MSc in Video Games Development (£8,000 for EU students, £10,050 for non-EU) over several years if they so wish.