Alumni Days 2015

2015-12-14

UPDATE: all talks are now published on our Guest Lecture playlist on YouTube.

This weekend we took a break from everything that has to do with Christmas preparations hullabaloo and invited some of our alumni to come and inspire our current students and spread their knowledge.

Martin Greip showed a very impressive graph of “All the Feels”™ of being an indie developer and the daily struggle of running a studio. And by “accident” he also revealed Eat Create Sleep’s next game, Project Synvilla.

Martin Greip - Eat Create Sleep
Martin Greip – Eat Create Sleep

Albertina Sparrhult held a very personal introduction (with cows, bathroom queues and everything), to what Diversi is all about and why we all benefit from more diversity within our games.

Albertina Sparrhult - Diversi
Albertina Sparrhult – Diversi

Captive audience
1st, 2nd and 3rd year GAME Students
Albertina Sparrhult - Diversi
Albertina Sparrhult – Diversi

Nobody knows how to herd cats and destroy all the fun more than Ylva Sundström, who shared her biggest secrets on how to become an exceptional game producer.

Ylva Sundström - GameDuell
Ylva Sundström – GameDuell

After he conquered Europe, the son of Gotland return to talk about his conquests. Andreas Svensson has been working at several game studios around Italy and Germany. Now he’s back at Blue Byte, one of the first companies he worked at.

Andreas Svensson - Ubisoft BlueByte
Andreas Svensson – Ubisoft BlueByte

Making a game is easy. Making a game that people understand is hard. Kalle Henningsson, QA Manager at Playdead, showed of some examples of the different iterations of Limbo and their upcoming title, Inside.

Kalle Henningsson - Playdead
Kalle Henningsson – Playdead

ULF_6936

Daniel Polgar & Lee Kåberg hade the audience clapping and cheering while they talked about the process of starting up their company, Bridgeside Interactive. They spilled the beans on everything from how to form the company culture, what positions you need to fill and where the money is. Not only that, but they also showed of their first game, Clapper. Which is based on a game they produced during, the objectively best course on Campus Gotland, “Theme Park”.

Lee Kåberg - Bridgeside Interactive
Lee Kåberg – Bridgeside Interactive

Daniel Polgar - Bridgeside Interactive
Daniel Polgar – Bridgeside Interactive

”Who made that wonderful torch”, was the only thing everyone could think of when Horizon: Zero Dawn was revealed at this years E3. Prop modeler extraordinaire, Kim Aava, talked about what goes into a portfolio, the difference between working at an indie studio compared to a AAA-studio. But most importantly, she bravely showed some of her early work to show that everybody is a beginner at some point. An encouragement to us all!

Kim Aava – Guerrilla Games
Kim Aava – Guerrilla Games

Alumni Panel at the student pub Rindi
Alumni Panel at the student pub Rindi
Alumni Panel at the student pub Rindi
Alumni Panel at the student pub Rindi
ULF_7061
Alumni Panel at the student pub Rindi
Alumni Panel at the student pub Rindi
ULF_7121

We ended it all at the local student union pub, with a Q&A-panel consisting of some of our alumnis, mingle and some of the games produced at the education this year. It was a blast! Big, big thanks to all alumni, students and staff!

PS. we will publish all talks we’re allowed to share, on our youtube-channel. Subscribe to our RSS-feed for a notification when they’re up!

Alumni Days 2014

Brjann Sigurgeirsson driver spelstudion Image & Form och berättar om sin mångåriga erfarenhet som indieutvecklare. Föreläsningen ges på göteborgska.

Jens Berglind and Peter Stråhle talks about the development of Shelter 2:

Nicodemus Mattisson berättar om sina erfarenheter av att jobba som frilans och erfarenheter att ta hjälp av en agent för att söka jobb.

Alumnipanelen: en panel full med prominenta alumner som diskuterar sina erfarenheter och svarar på frågor från studenter. I år höll vi till i Studentbaren Rindi.

Alumni Days 2014 poster

Schedule:
10 December, Wednesday, E22
15.45 Nicodemus Mattisson – Freelance Concept Artist
17.00 Brjánn Sigurgeirsson – Image & Form
Albertina Sparrhult – Diversi

11 December, B27
16.00 Albertina Sparrhult – Diversi workshop / meetup

12 December, Friday, B51
13.00 Hans Svensson – Institutionen för Speldesign
13.30 Teddy Sjöström – Pixel Ferrets
14.45 Jens Berglind, Peter Stråhle – Might & Delight
16.00 Daniel Gustafsson – Calm Island

13 December, Saturday, B51
13.00 Rabi Afram – NetEnt
14.15 Malin Lövenberg – A Sweet Studio
15.30 Anders Ekermo – Blizzard Entertainment
20.00 Alumni panel & Party (at Rindi)

Lara Tompa (Pixolar): Event Photography Workshop

Lara Tompa is a freelance photographer and entrepreneur who left a successful career in accounting to follow her passion. Since founding Pixolar Photography in Amsterdam she’s covered chaotic events in extreme conditions and seen more of the world than she’d have thought possible, trading her photography for access, travel and living. Unique experiences and time in the sun, rather than purely monetary gain.

Eva is coming to Campus Gotland for a one day workshop on Event Photography (and a bit of creative entrepreneurship), to help the GAME students self-document their work during the Gotland Game Conference.

She follows this up with a half day – online – of post production and feedback on the documentation after the event.

  • Documentation and Marketing for Creative Startups, Workshop, Tues. 27th 10:00-16:00, D20
  • Evaluation & Post Production Workshop, Mon 2nd june, 10:00-12:00, D31 + online

For questions, contact Ulf Benjaminsson.

Pixolar web

Martine Pederson on Systems in Social Work

Martine during her lecture

Games are carefully designed, learner-driven systems.
Games produce meaning.
Games are dynamic systems.
Games are immersive.
Games are interactive and dynamic, requiring a player’s participation.”

This is taken from the Institute of Play’s report “Quest to Learn” However, this definition is true of many things – other than games. Social work being one of them.

Martine Pedersen is a social worker with thirteen years experience, and a start up “Indspark”, under her belt. She has worked with with many age groups, and dealt with a number of issues, including drug abuse, anti-social behaviour and, family support.

Early on she saw that behaviour couldn’t be looked at in isolation; that many things contributed to a person’s life situation.

The more she talked about how she saw Social Work, and the methods she uses with her clients, the more we heard applied game design, and knew we had to have her.

Her presentation was advanced game design, applied systems design, and great social work and an absolute asset to the course.