The Australian Film Radio and Television School is now taking applications for a 2010 course in Games & Virtual Worlds. More »
Yesterday we had an interview with Gary Hayes from AFTRS about the new game courses launching next year (applications close November 7, people). Today we offer up an interview with Ian Brown, currently a lecturer in animation and visual effects. He has one hell of a track record, having worked at Animal Logic for ten years and had lead VFX roles on movies like Lord of the Rings. But he’s also been making games since ye olde days, having even had a commercial release of a game for the Commodore 64!
We spoke with Brown more specifically about the game design side of the new AFTRS courses, exploring games like Portal, Braid, Flow, and God of War in a discussion of what games need to learn from film, how the game designer should be recognised like a film director, how gameplay and story should mix, and most importantly what a game design student at AFTRS can expect to take away at the end of the course. More »
We recently mentioned the 2009 launch of Game Design and Virtual Worlds courses at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. If you are at all interested, remember applications close November 7 so you should be working on your applications now if you haven’t already started.
We caught up with two of the key staff behind the courses and will be sharing those interviews today and tomorrow. First up is Gary Hayes, the Founding Head of LAMP and the leading light on the Virtual Worlds course. You can read his terribly impressive bio here. Tomorrow we speak with Ian Brown, with another ridiculously impressive bio (hello… Sequence Lead VFX Artist on Lord of the Rings), who shares more insights on the Game Design course.
Jump for the interview with Hayes, where we explore the general nature of the courses, the strengths of studying games in the AFTRS environment, and why it has taken so long for games to take story seriously. More »
You may have seen a few ad spots floating around Kotaku recently about some new courses coming to AFTRS in 2009. Ads or no, I thought it was well worth digging deeper to find out more details for you — just as Logan gave up his gig here at the Kotaku desk to take up the dream gig of Game Designer at Tantalus, I’m sure plenty of readers would love to explore the opportunity of making games. And these two courses really do seem to be an excellent way for talented, creative game lovers to go a step beyond the code and artistry (awesome as that is) and aim for a designer role.
Today some brief notes on what I’ve learned about the courses, and in coming days I’ll share some more information gleaned from interviews with two of the key staff involved with the development of the new programs.
The essentials. We’re talking Graduate Diploma level studies, with applications due November 7. Courses in Game Design and Virtual Worlds are both full-time over two semesters in 2009. These aren’t like courses you can do at a graphics college. You won’t be focusing on learning 3D graphics and programming tools. The focus is creative leadership, understanding game mechanics, and prototyping your concepts. More on the basic ideas behind the two new courses in a video after the jump. More »
