Andreas Wangler from Codemasters


Andreas Wangler is a level designer at Codemasters, currently building their new first person shooter Bodycount.

Prior to his position at Codemasters, Andreas worked for Avalanche building Just Cause 2.

This lecture is open to the public, but with priority for students taking Level Design II.

Time: Friday, September 17th, 13:00-14:00
Location: E22

Johannes Wadin from Lionhead Studios

With apologizes for the short notice we’re happy to announce that Johannes Wadin from Lionhead Studios in London is coming here on Friday to talk about level design for multi player games.

Wadin graduated from GAME in 2006 and went on to work as a Level Designer at Avalanche for three years. As the massive layoffs swept Sweden in 2008 and decimated the industry, Johannes jumped ship and joined Lionhead Studios in England. He was awarded Alumni of the Year at Gotland Game Awards 2010 for his outstanding professional achievements.

Johannes will talk about level design for multiplayer first person shooters. He will present level design patterns that allows you to better utilize the early design phases of your development, creating functional core level flows and asymmetric balancing from the get-go.

The lecture is open for the public!

Time: Friday, September 10th, 13:00-14:00
Location: GAME Motion Capture Studio

Richard Bartle on Human Rights in Virtual Worlds

For those of you who missed his excellent talk at the Gotland Game Awards, Professor Richard Bartle is coming back for a new lecture the September 2nd!

This marks the first of a series of public lectures hosted by GAME this autumn in our course Human Rights and Diversity in Serious Games 2010. Like last year we’ll invite speakers from the industry, arts, academia, press, government and more, to discuss human rights and diversity in the context of modern interactive technology. All lectures are free and open to the public!

Bartle is a professor and game researcher at the University of Essex. He’s most famous for having created MUD (multi-user dungeon) – the first of what would later evolve to become massively multiplayer online role-playing games. He’s one of the regular writers over at the popular science blog Terra Nova, with a focus on the study of virtual worlds and he was the examiner for our own doctor Mirjam Eladhari’s dissertation. 🙂

He will be talking about human rights in virtual worlds and his work with the European Council to create an HR-manifest for games.

Time: Thursday, September 2nd, 16:30-18:30
Location: E31

Sjoerd De Jong from Teotl Studios

Teotl Studios (formely known as Toltec Studios) is a young game development studio located in central Sweden, currently in its final stages of production on its debut game, The Ball.

Sjoerd De Jong – lead designer and developer of The Ball, and founder of Teotl Studios – is coming here this week for two reasons: first to give you guys feedback on the levels you’ve produced since his last visit, and second; to give two lectures.

Thursday, 22nd April (10:00 – 17:00, E31)

  • Feedback from Sjoerd

Friday, 23rd April
Lecture 1: The Ball (10.00-12.00, B51)

  • A look at an alpha build and introduction to the game and story
  • History of the project
  • How we work and organize ourselves
  • Efficient Design – Why a ball?
  • The concept and gameplay analyzed
  • The pacing and balance of the game.
  • The Art Style

Lecture 2: Working in the Games Industry (13.00-15.00, B51)

  • How I started and how I got to where I am today
  • Whats good about working in the games industry
  • Whats bad about working in the games industry – The problems
  • The challenges of the future and how the games industry is constantly evolving
  • Small companies compared to large companies
  • Freelancing
  • How to break into the industry and get hold of your first job.