PC Gamer #2/2012 writes about The Game Assembly
In PC gamer #2/2012 they write about game educations in Sweden. They start out with a larger text about game educations i general and they have a map over Sweden where they point out where all the educations are. Are you really interesed in reading about game educations you can also read the Spelutbildarindex , a text written by Dataspelsbranschen and KK-stiftelsen .
They have several interviews with students from different school and people from the Swedish game industry. But there is also half a page with, Ann-Sofie Sydow, the educational coordinator at The Game Assemby.
TGA application form will be posted week 7
To all of you are who planning to apply to The Game Assembly. Week 7 we´ll post our digital application form.
Last application date is the 15th of May.
Read more on how you apply to The Game Assembly on this page:
http://www.thegameassembly.com/apply
We are looking for people with drive, dedication and determination. People who really wants to be game developers.
For you who are going to apply to our game art and leveldesign courses. It is high time to put a a portfolio together. We only want to see your latest and your best work. Read more about it here.
Level design application requirements have been updated!
1. A top down representation of a new level for your favorite game. Write a short description explaining the level.
2. Draw two new props for your favorite game. Write a short description explaining how they would be used within the game.
3. Screenshots of other stuff you’ve created (maps, mods etc).
Last application date
We have now set the last application date to The Game Assembly. It´s the 15th of May 2012.
Last application date: 15th of May 2012
Notice for interview is sent: June 2012
Interviews and information meeting: June 2012
Class of 2012 starts : 29th of August 2012
Read more on how you apply on here: http://www.thegameassembly.com/apply
Welcome back Martin!
We´re back from Christmas break and many new things are happening.
For example after a year with Vea, Martin Hammarbrink is finally back from parental leave.
Unfortunatelly Lars Ove Dahlin, Martins substitute, will leave us for new and fresh pasture, but not right now. We can enjoy his company the rest of January.
The 13th -14th of February The Game Assembly will change location. Not far, just across the house to newly renovated areas. We are looking forward to that. We will continue to have the same address. So when we have the Open houses that we normally have every sprong, they will be held in our new rooms.
We are waiting for the an answer from YH-myndigheten when it comes to our new courses Entrepreneurial Gamedesigner and Technical Artist. Will they let us start them up or not? The answer will come the 23rd of January. Stay tuned.
The installers for 09's RTS and FPS game projects now available
The installers for the class of 09’s RTS and FPS game projects now available in the Games 09 section. Check them out!
09’s Real Time Strategy game installers
09’s First Person Shooter game installers
Happy Holidays You All
This year have been interesting. We went from “Kvalificerad Yrkeshögskola” to Yrkeshögskola. At the same time we also got the right to start our newest course at The Game Assembly – Leveldesign. We set out for an intense search for the right Level design teacher. And we found Martin Jonsson, a very, very good catch.
Don´t miss the new gallery updates
Don´t miss the new gallery updates for our students of 2010 and 2011.
The Class of 2010 had their course in Production projects and the Class of 2011 are just starting with their 3D Lowpoly assignements
TGA nominated in the category Creative Industry
Now it´s official!
The finalists for the five Malmö Industry prices has been nominated. The Game Assembly is one of the finalists in the category Creative Industry.
The 27th of February we will know at the festive Malmö Industry Gala.
Game trailers for Class of 11´s first game project
The first game all students make at The Game Assembly is a text adventure game. It´s made in a “language” called Alan and the pictures are all 2D. Text adventure games are not very commen now a days but we find the genre useful since it´s a fairly easy way to get acquainted with game making, game history, cooperation, finding ones character as a Game programmer/Game artist/ Level designer and so on. The artists get to make a lot of pictures for this game and it´s a waste not to show them. We have put them together in films where the slide shows the pictures follows the story.
The students had 8 weeks to finish this project parallel to working with regular school courses. The student groups consisted of 3 art students, 1 – 2 Level design students and 3 programming students each.
Below are linkes to our Youtube Channel where you can find all seven films.
TGA10´s game projects #3 and #4 are finally available
We’re happy to announce that the students of 2010’s games projects number 3 and number 4 are now available for you to download and enjoy!
Head over to the Turn base strategy Games >> 10 to download them for yourself
Head over to the Shoot em up Games >> 10 to download them for yourself
There’re two installers featuring the top 2 student rated Turn based startegy games and also two installers for the top 2 student ranked Shoot em up games.
Enjoy!
Game trailer from Class of 10´s Space shooter-games
We are happy to present Class of 10´s trailer for game project number 5- a Space shooter game.
This video shows a few highlights from the fifth game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 2010. The students had 10 weeks to finish this project parallel to working with regular school courses. The student groups consisted of 4 to 5 art students and 4 to 5 programming students each.
Game trailer from Class of 10´s TBS-games
We are happy to present Class of 10´s trailer for game project number 4- a Turn Based Strategy game. .
This video shows a few highlights from the fourth game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 2010. The students had 8 weeks to finish this project parallel to working with regular school courses. The student groups consisted of 4 to 5 art students and 4 to 5 programming students each.
Game trailer from Class of 10´s Shoot-em-up game
We are happy to present Class of 10´s trailer for game project number 3 – a Shoot-em-up game.
This video shows a few highlights from the third game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 2010. The students had 8 weeks to finish this project parallel to working with regular school courses. The student groups consisted of 4 to 5 art students and 4 to 5 programming students each.
Statistics showing The Game Assembly is doing the right thing
We found a report, Spelutbildarindex-2011, that shows academic game education statistics. The report is only in Swedish and the actual picture we found interesting only concerns univerities and colleges. The Game Assembly is a Advanced Vocational Education. You can read more about that at YH-myndighetens hompage.
Now first of all we don´t want to say bad things about the academy. There are room for all of us. Now when that´s is said. Let´s look at the picture.
The circles above are the statistics concerning the academy. The circle to the left is the one telling how many who applied for game educations, 2417. The seond circle tells us how many that got in, 1476. The third circle tells us how many who actually graduated, 441.
Meet us at CyberLan2, Sydcon or The Media Evolution breakfast
The Game Assembly are keeping busy marketing our education. Maybe not at the “normal” education fairs, we think that we can find our crowd elsewhere.
This weekend is going to be busy. It´s both Cyberlan2 and Sydcon here i Malmö.
At Cyberlan2, Niklas Hansson and Ann-Sofie Sydow, will be giving lectures.
Friday the 28th of October
18.30 – “The Game Assembly Game education for AAA” by Ann-Sofie Sydow
We will be there from 13.00 till 20.00 so if you have questions you can just come and talk to us.
You can also try out some of the students games.
Saturday the 29th of October
18.00 – Niklas Hansson will be giving a talk about The Game Assemblt game projects.
On Staurday The Game Assembly will be at Cyberlan2 between 10.00 and approx 19.30.
Read more on Cybercon´s homepage: http://www.deltalans.se/content/cyberlan2-0
At Sydcon Danny Antivalidis will be on stage, Saturday, speedpainting and there will be a The Game Assembly both plus several The Game Assembly student you can ask questions to.
Dates: 28th – 30th of October
Read more on Sydcon´s homepage: http://www.sydcon.sverok.net/?p=313
If you are a member in Media Evolution ,or for that matter, if you are a person that likes getting up early in the morning we host a Media Evolution-breakfast the 1st of November at 7.30 – 9.00.
If you want to join us you need to contact Media Evolution before the 31st of October: anmalan@mediaevolution.se
There's a new gallery on our site
Don´t miss the new gallery for our students of 2011. This very first update is from the “Introduction to 2D” course that the Game Art students just finished. Check it out!
"Like" The Game Assembly on Facebook
The Game Assembly has started a Facebook page. We had a Facebook group but since we started to realize that this group is more of the talkative kind, we saw a need for a more formal page where we could post what´s happening at the school.
So this Facebook page will work as an addition to this homepage where you can find more information about us; download games that the students have made, apply and go through our curriculum.
The Facebook group will go on living but since it is a more internal channel we are going to try to keep it more for the students at school.
So go to our new Facebook page and press like. We will update it us much as we can.
Malmö and the Region - The True Nordic Gaming Cluster ?
I was putting together a list of game companies in the area. And the list got rather impressive. It must be shared!
I know there must be more smaller companies out there. So please e-mail me the names and links and I´ll put them up on this list.
Just to show where you find our students I´ll make those companies in bold letters.
Companies in Malmö
Massive a Ubisoft Studio
Tarsier
Mandelform
Ozma
Redikod
Imperial games studio
Illusion labs
Simogo
Junebud
Defrostgames
Full Control
Planeto
Southend
DonutGames.com
Mediocre
Welcome Class of 2011
We proudly present our new The Game Assembly students – Class of 2011.
We have our Game Programmers and our Game Artist but this year we also have 12 Level Designers.
They have only been here for 2,5 weeks but it feels like they have been here for ever. There is something special about getting creative young people in the same room. Everybody have the same goal and that is to be game developers.
The Game Assembly proudly presents - Project Temporality
Niklas Hansson, one of our programming teachers, has together with his partners at Defrost Games made a game during the summer; Project Temporality.
Today Major Nelson announces the 20ish finalists for Dream.Build.Play and Project Temporality is one of the top games! You can find more information, sceenshots and trailer on Defrost Games homepage.
We have been following Niklas and his crew closely during these last months and seen the amazing lights in the game transform into splendid glow and soft shadows. We can´t wait to see what this might do to our students fps-games. Follow our last year students closely, especially the fps-game.
Beijerskajen 8 - TGAs new location
The Game Assembly has moved from Kalandegatan 9 to Beijerskajen 8 in Malmö.
Why? We are getting bigger and we needed more classrooms. Our last location couldn´t offer that so we started to look and this water front space appeared. It´s still close to the central station and the center of Malmö. And we´re closer to Minc, one of Malmö´s business incubators that also are members of our advisory board.
The exact space we are sitting in now are temporary. Our permanent area will be in the same building but the builders wont be ready until January 2012. But we are very happy to be here at last.
At the moment we are trying to get settled, opening boxes trying to find the white board pens and stuff.
We will try to have an open house and invite people to show everybody around but first we want to welcome our new students the 29th of August and of course our class of 2010. The class of 2009 are starting their internship period that day and everybody has super internship companies taking care of them the next 30 weeks.
We are proud to present or Class of 09´s internship companies
Our students end their education with a 30 week internship (Lärande I Arbete). The Class of 09 is our second batch of game developers and they start their 30 weeks at the 29th of August. I´ve been a bit, but just a bit, troubled over that I would have to call them all summer to see if they´ve their placements but no. I have been working with educations like this for many years and I have never experienced a faster process.
New teacher at The Game Assembly
Let us present Martin Jonsson, The Game Assemblys new teacher in Leveldesign.
Martin has a background in games, which started at good old Sofe and “ended” up in his own company, Blast Door Interactive. Martin has also been active at other game educations in Sweden plus he is the Chairman and manager at RLS, Ronneby Lajvsällskap.
Martin has a large network in the game industry and has today started to look through all leveldesign applications, 34 of them.
Since the curriculum is set by several level designers from Ubisoft Massive, Starbreeze and Junebud with The Game Assembly he only needs to create the “levels” for each course. This will be Martins occupation through the whole summer.
We support him in every way and we know this will be a start of a good relationship.
What´s been going on at The Game Assembly
The spring time is a very hectic period for us at The Game Assembly.
The best way to catch up is to follow our Facebook-page .
Here I will gather some stuff that´s been going on this spring.
The 18th of April was the students deadline for making their portfolios. This was also the date when game companies (and of course other companies that are interested in our students as interns) can contact our students and offer internship. At 10 a´clock the 18th the first company knocked at our door. But since we have coached our students with their portfolios and personal letters and stuff our students were ready. At the moment I know that there are at least 15 that have signed their internship agreements and several are interviewed by game studios in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, England and Bulgaria…I´ll post where they all end up in August on my “map”: http://www.thegameassembly.com/tga-students-work-here-today.
Applying for the Game Programming course
For you who are applying for The Game Assembly Game Programming course here comes som vital information.
Everybody who applies for the Game Programming course will the 28th of May get a mail from us with a math-, logic- and physics test. The questions are based on material from the upper secondary school (gymnasiet).
So please be prepared for this mail. The mail will contain all the information around the test but just so you know. We need you to do it the same day, that is 28th of May. The test will run from 10 am and approximately 3 hours forward.
TGA10's first games are finally available!
We’re happy to announce that the students of 2010’s first two games projects are now available for you to download and enjoy! Head over to the Games >> 10 to download them for yourself
There’s one Adventure Games Pack featuring the top 3 student rated Interactive Fiction games and also three installers for the top 3 student ranked Point and Click games.
Enjoy!
Updates in the TGA gallery SG10
Don´t miss the new updates in our Gallery.
It´s the class of 10 that have finnished their Concept art class with Danny Antivalidis. They have both made Landscapes and Characters and here are a few of the students pictures.
And yes, if you have seen some of the characters before, we had the students posting them on Character of the week on Conceptart.org. The character theme was Post Apocalypse Paladin.
Meet and greet The Game Assembly the 27th of April
The 27th of April The Game Assembly have invited companies with an interest in interactivity and 3D visualization to a Meet and Greet at Minc in Malmö.
Date: Wednesday the 27th of April
Time: 16.30-19.30
Place: Minc, Anckargripsgatan 3 in Malmö
We want to present our students to a possible future and widen their perspective to a broader market and vice versa. But of course we invite the Swedish game industry too.
Since our region is building up a game- and media cluster this will be an interesting meeting for us all.
To have an interesting mingel is not the only purpose though, our class of 09 will apply for internship this spring/summer. The internship period starts i August and lasts till April 2012, and you´ll have the opportunity to meet them. Maybe you´ll find a future employee. The intership is the last course at The Game Assembly.
If you work for a company that might be interested in coming to this Meet and Greet please contact Ann-Sofie Sydow.
Companies that will be at Meet and Greet the 27th of April:
IO Interactive
Ubisoft Massive
Playdead Games studio
Imperial Games studio
DICE Easy
Mandelform
Junebud
Augmented Event
Southend Interactive
..do your company want to meet and greet our students? Contact anse(a)thegameassembly.com
Visit from the Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education
Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education (Yrkeshögskolemyndigheten) was at the Game Assembly for a supervision (tillsyn) the 24th of March 2011. They visit all the educations regularly to make sure we do what we said we shall do in our goals. This is a very interesting meeting every time, they were here last in 2009, and we got really good feedback to act on.
They also pointed out The Game Assembly´s 5 strengths.
The Game Assembly has
1. Well-defined work categories
2. Clear and obvious demand from the game industry
3. Very good affiliation with the game industry
4. Very engaged student group. The students have drive, dedication and determination.
5. The Game Assembly is well structured, have a high ambition with the student outcome and has a high pace and tempo in the education.
OPEN HOUSE at The Game Assembly 2011
OPEN HOUSE at The Game Assembly on the 15th and the 29th of March.
Date: 15 and the 29th of March
Time: 17.00-20.00
Location: Kalendegatan 9, Malmö
TGA student's artworks featured at GDC 2011
Oscar Sjöstedt’s 3D work “Soldat” was featured in mental images’s GDC2011 presentation “Building Photorealistic Shaders with mental mill® and iray®”.
Since the fall of 2008 we have been using mental images’s software mental mill for our Game Art student’s shader courses. It allows us to easily work with real-time shaders for Autodesk® Maya® in a very visual and intuitive node based working environment.
It is great for all the Game Art students to get a better understanding for how real-time shaders work and get an introduction into authoring these shaders themselves.
Thank you mental images for featuring Oscar’s work.
Now at SnowCastle in Norway
So I guess I’m the last one out this round and at the same time this is posted I begin my employment at the Norweigan studio SnowCastle where I also did my intership.
Oslo Begins
It all started with our program manager Ann-Sofie stopping by, saying she had heard from a guy named Bendik and his studio that could offer the perfect internship and was super enthusiastic about me! Surely I took it with a large grain of salt , but as we started talking he actually was super enthusiastic about me and though I was opposed to the idea of moving at first, he never gave up his never ending effort in persuading me which I’m very grateful of, cause I’ve had the best of times and have always felt extremely appreciated, which means more than anything to me!
TGA-students work here today!
The internship period isn´t over for all our TGA students. But we´ve heard good news from most of them.
16 of our game programmers have been offered jobs where they´ve been doing there internship:
5 at Ubisoft Massive
1 at Junebud
3 at Imperial Games Studio
2 at Rocket Pack
1 at Yager
1 at Codemasters
1 at Pixeltales
2 at Visual Dreams
So far 14 of our 20 3D artists have been offered jobs at the following game companies:
9 at Ubisoft Massive
1 at Junebud
1 at Starbreeze
1 at Climax Group
1 at Snowcastle
1 at Visual Dreams
The ones who still haven´t gotten a job are activelylooking and we are not worried. They are all very very good.
Game trailer from Class of 09´s RTS-games
We are happy to present the class of 09´s trailer for game project number 6.
It´s a RTS-game made during a period of 10 weeks. And notice that the game project is only a half time projekt. In each group there are 5 3D artists and 5 programmers.
Entrepreneurial learning at The Game Assembly
The Game Assembly is an education that teaches the handicraft of making games. It is not an education where we teach our students to make business plans and entrepreneurship. The time spent here is to short and not everybody strive to start their own company.
Our students make games all the time. They work in groups with approximately 10 people, half artists and half programmers. So far we only have had game artist and game programmers at The Game Assembly but this fall we will also have Leveldesigners and then the groups will grow a bit.
Micke Larsson, intern at Pixeltales in Stockholm
Micke Larsson, a game programming student who started his education at The Game Assembly 2008, is soon ending his internship at Pixeltales in Stockholm.
I asked Micke how he ended up at The Game Assembly in the first place, and he answered:
“Well, it started one late night, just before last application date to the university in April 2008. I was going through studera.nu´s homepage and wanted to find an education that suited me. I came up with a long list and I thought that I never would make up my mind.
Then I asked myself what I thought was the most fun in my life. The answer was games. I went through my list with educations again and decided that game programming and programming would be my challenge.
A few days later I received a post card from an education called The Game Assembly in Malmö. I figured I might as well send in an application since the last application date was in May.
I wrote a letter and they called me in for an interview. I mean, a new city could be an interesting experience. Then I talked to Niklas Hansson and from then on I knew it was at The Game Assembly I wanted to be and nowhere else…even if it meant I had to apply again next year.”
New Space Shooter-games to download
Download the Class of 09 students fifth game project. The task at hand was to create a Space Shooter game.
The students worked in teams of 5 game art students and 5 game programming students for 10 weeks in parallel to their regular courses.
Here are installers for the two top ranking games produced for this assignment. The ranking was done by having the students play and evaluate the games themselves.
Make sure to check out our other students following games which we will publish here continuously as the students develop them. The future games will of course evolve both code wise and graphics wise as the students acquire new knowledge here at our school.
Simon Persson and Simon Chow and Animation
Today we had Simon Persson och Simon Chow, former students at The Game Assembly, here and they shared their knowledge in animation with our students. Thanks guys! It was not the last time we asked you over. It was not the last time we asked you over as inspiration for our students.
Both guys now work at Ubisoft Massive here in Malmö.
Sounddesign with Simon Koudriavtsev
Today Simon Koudriavtsev from Ubisoft Massive came to The Game Assembly to share his knowledge in sounddesign. Everything from 2 and 3D ambience sounds to propagation, final mix and optimization. The students had lots and lots of questions. Even though we at The Game Assembly don´t have sound on our curriculum we do games. All students work together in groups, artists and programmers, and sound is important. Maybe we´ll hear a difference in the future games at The Game Assembly.
Thank you again Simon.
David Cheung - TGA-intern at Rocketpack
David Cheung was among the first who started at The Game Assembly 2008. He was one of the brave ones who dared to invest 2.5 years in our hands even though it was a completely new education.
When I asked how he heard about The Game Assembly, he said he applied to SOFE first but then heard about the TGA and submitted an application to us.
This is not something he regrets, David says, “- I had been drawing a bit before and wanted to go to school with others who had the same interest as me. But with teachers and classmates, it became so much more than what I expected. When I think back on the time in school I think of how we all had something we burned for and we had a lot of fun, sharing ideas and creating concepts for the games.”
Capcom Mobile launches VisualDreams´s game - Herman The Hermit
Three of our students in the Class of 08, David Marquardt, Harald Johansson och Kristofer Boman, have started their own game company during their intern-period (LIA-period) – Visual Dreams .
A while back they got contaced by the Japanese game company giant, Capcom Mobile. They were interested in launching our guys game Herman the Hermit.
We, everybody at the The Game Assembly, are very proud of their achievement and we know it have been a lot of hard work behind it.
And if there are someone who wants to meet David, Harald or Kristoffer in February they can do that in Barcelona at the Mobile Worlds Congress.
If you want to know when the game Herman th Hermit is available for the different platforms follow this link.
TGA is looking for a teacher in Leveldesign
Is there someone who is interested in working as a Leveldesign teacher at The Game Assembly?
Obviously we have requirements. Read more about it here.
The Game Assembly will start Leveldsign this fall
Today is a splendid day!
Today we got the exciting news from YH-myndigheten that we this fall will start not only Game Art and Game Programming but also Leveldesign.
This is extremely thrilling and we are working on a more specified curriculum. We also need to find a new teacher who could help us build this course so it cooperates with the other two courses. It´s a challenge!
More news will follow. Stay tuned.
We at The Game Assembly wish you all a peaceful Christmas
2010 has been a eventful year and we are thankful for all the great students we have.
Have a peaceful Christmas.
Game trailers and games from the class of '09
We are happy to present the class of 09´s trailer for game project number 3, trailer for game project number 4 and the installers for the two highest rated games from game project number 4.
Game project number 3 is a “Shoot-Em-Up” style game project and game project number 4 is a “Turn Based Strategy” style game project.
09’s Game Project 3 – Trailer
09’s Game Project 4 – Trailer
09’s Game Project 4 – Installer
Vertical Tic Tac Toe tournament 2010
The Game programmers at The Game Assembly ends their first term in challenging each other in a Vertical Tic Tac Toe-tournament. Everybody has written their own AI and the winner will meet Niklas Hansson’s program. The three best coders will also get some goodies to enlighten their Christmas spirit.
Who will win this year? Stay tuned and we´ll announce the winner…And the winner is – Martin Johansson!! Congratulations!
Snow Castle from Norway visits The Game Assembly
Today we had a visit from Bendik Stang from Snow Castle in Norway. Bendik also brought Dag Isaksson, who at the moment, is an intern from The Game Assembly at their studio.
Snow Castle yesterday recieved 500 000 Danish Kr, a Nordic Game Program funding, for their game Winds of Edea.
Bendik gave us two books for our library. We are all very thankful for new references and welcome Bendik and his crew back in May, when we all gather for Nordic Game Conference.
Updates in the TGA gallery
Check out the updates in the Gallery.
The Class of 09´s Gallery has had the course Advanced Production Project and the The Class of 10´s Gallery has had their Introduction to 3D course.
Leveldesign at The Game Assembly
The Game Assembly has applied to start up a program in Leveldesign next year. The Yh-myndigheten that grants these things will give us an answer in the middle of January. We are waiting impatiently since this will give The Game Assembly an even more complete game developing force.
It´s not just because we at The Game Assembly want to have this course (we do but), it´s because the game industry really need this type of specialists in their company. There is no Level design education in Sweden now only Game design. And since there is no big market for game designers we can´t and won´t go start up a program in it. And the likelyness that a a freschly educated game designer will get a job as an game designer in the game industry is low we don´t wan´t to fool people.
But there is a lack of Leveldesigners.
What does a Leveldesigner do?
Lecture series in Game Art and Game programming
Since The Game Assembly is a learning organisation we take pride in sharing knowledge with each other.
We know from experience that one of the ways to manifest your knowledge is to teach someone else. And since the game industry moves som fast when it comes technique we as the staff can´t possibly know everything.
We encourage our students to help each other when they get stuck in programming code or the mysterious ways of 3D in stead of coming directly to the teacher. When you get out into the “real world” there will be no teacher holding hands. And we see distinct positive changes in groups where there is a sharing attitude.
As I said, The Game Assemblt aspires to be a learning organisation on many levels we are now planning a Lecture Series held by our Class of 08. First out was Samuel Larsson, a 3D artist at Junebud. Samuel shared his journey from The Game Assembly to Junebud. How he organsized for the whole class to go and visit Junebuds studio, how he focused his portfolio and reflected on his motivation and creativity.
In the beginninig if next year we will continue with the rest of the Class of 08. Every lecture is different from the other. Jill Jarlestam, Felix Waubert de Puiseau, Oscar Sjöstedt and Magnus Ander, working at Ubisoft Massive, will focus on the different work categories they are in: 3D, concept, character and tech artist. Matteo Nobis Sandén and Daniel Lindberg will hold a lecture in Leveldesign. The guys from Small green men will come to TGA and reflect on how it is to work with an AD and optimizing since they are making Iphone games. Keep track on this page and on our Facebook-group and you will here all about it.
Lionel Cregut from Starbreeze at The Game Assembly
We´ve had the opportunity to have Lionel Cregut, a Senior Character Artists from Starbreeze Uppsala here at The Game Assembly.
Lionel held a splendid lecture filled with great tips and advice and our students got loads of inspiration. We are very greatfull for the document he left behind so we can continue the discussions he started.
Work in progress: 09´s 5th game project
The class of 09 started their first 3D game project here at The Game Assembly this fall.
For the rest of their last year here they continue to work in the same group making four different games.
Here we show some art work in progress from the groups. In these pictures they have only have worked for six weeks and they have four weeks to go. They are four artists and four programmers in each group and we long for playing their new games.
We have also udated the gallery of 09 with some Destroyed Environment and Anatomy. Check it out!!
09's Shoot em up game installers
We now have the two top ranked games from 09’s Game Project 3 available for download in our “Games” section. Head on over there and give them a try!
This is the 09 students third game project. The task at hand was to create a “Shoot Em Up” style game with pre-rendered 2D-graphics. The students worked in teams of 4 game art students and 4 game programming students for 8 weeks in parallel to their regular courses.
Gogogic at The Game Assembly
The Game Assembly had a visit from an Islandic game company this week, Gogogic. Since Island don´t have this kind of education we spent a long time talking about Advanced Vocational Education and Training (Yh-utbildning). That our education is commisioned by the game industry and we work with a modern handicraft.
Visit The Game Assembly
We have some inquiry about the possibility of visiting The Game Assembly. We have decided to grant the requests.
Those of you that are interested in visiting The Game Assembly please contact me:
anse(a)thegameassembly.com
The visit will be during day time and I´ll give you all the information in our seminar room and our students will be prepared to answer questions.
Since we have a rather small facility and high security we can´t take in too many at the time.
Updates in the TGA gallery
There are updates in our TGA Gallery.
Check it out!
The Astonishing Tribe at The Game Assembly
Martin Eriksson from The Astonishing Tribe were here today and held a lecture in how to succeed coordinating around sixty developers, several parallel projects and project groups. TAT creates beautiful and highly functional UIs, whish greatly improve the user experience, and can be seen in millions devices worldwide.
Welcome, students of 2010, to The Game Assembly!
The Game Assembly wants to welcome the students of 2010 to our humble facilities in Malmö.
You have been here a couple of weeks now and we hope you enjoy your selves. We know we´ll have a good two years together.
Class of 2009 having their first Morning Meeting
When you start your second year at The Game Assembly you get to work in the same group with the same people for four games. We designed it that way because the tech is getting so advanced for every game that it would be time consuming to start over again every time. This way the programmers and the artists can focus on the right things making the game.
Plus when you work in the same group you really get to know each other. In the end every group is working like a well balanced game studio. It´s amazing to se the transformation from a group of people working together to a well organized unit of creative artists and programmers perform magic.
At The Game Assembly we have learned that meetings should be short and effective. That´s why every group have their white board in our corridor. There is no place to sit so every one has to stand up…we call them “stand-up-meeting-hubs”. The groups have their meetings at around 9.05 every morning. This is a picture of their first meeting.
The Game Assembly Advisory Board
The 7 of September The Game Assembly had a Advisory Board-meeting.
The Game Assembly has an engaged and interesting group of people gathered around us. 50% of them has to be from the commersial and industrial life whitin the game industry. This is important to us since they are the ones who are going to ensure that our education is teaching the right stuff. We also have representation from university and other educational institution making sure we are doing it right “school-wise”. The students representation on our board have a standing point at the agenda where they report from a The Game Assembly-student point of view.
Allready from start of The Game Assembly we have had a very good connection with the game industry and this version of the board we have added our local incubator, Minc. This is to secure help to our students who wants to start their own business after their 2,5 years here.
The Members of our Advisory Board are:
Sten Selander, Unity Technologies AS
David Polfeldt, Ubisoft Massive
Ola Holmdahl, Junebud
Martin Stjernström, Southend
Emma Mellander, Nordiska Datorspelsprogrammet
Oscar Wemmert, Gameflame
Jacob Lind, Game Art student 2010
Orvar Säfström, Frilans journalist
Tina Kaikkonen, Mobile Heights
Ann-Sofie Sydow, Dataspelsbranschen
Kristina von Hausswolff, Malmö Högskola
Håkan Andersson, Hermods
Janet Nordqvist, Kommunal Vuxenutbildning
Marlené Renholm, Netport
Bodil Rosvall, Minc
Daniel Hall, Game Programmer SP10
World In Conflict Showdown 25/8
On wednesday the 25th of august at 21:30 a few selected of our elite students will be participating in Ubisoft Massive’s World In Conflict Showdown during the Malmö Festival. At the “Stortorget” in Malmö you will be able to see the students on the “Stora Scenen” (big stage) lashing it out at each other in intense combat for world domination…
Folkpartiet visiting The Game Assembly
Undersecretary (Statssekreterare) Karin Pilsäter and Member of Parliament Ulf Nilsson will visit The Game Assembly on the 23rd of August.
Karin Pilsäter is the undersecretary in the Ministry of Education and specializes in extension studies, study grants and vocational training. We welcome her an Ulf Nilsson and hope they will experience our fantastic students and our good relations with the commercial and industrial life we have here.
The class of 08 on internship
The Game Assembly´class of 08 are now out in the real world – doing game development. We proudly present the companies below where they are doing their magic:
Sweden
Ubisoft Massive (5 programmers and 8 artists)
Muskedunder (1 artist)
Starbreeze (2 artist)
Royal Republic (5 programmers and 4 artists )
Junebud (1 programmer and 1 artist )
Pixel tales (2 programmers)
A start-up (2 programmers and 1 artist )
Denmark
Serious Games (1 artist)
Finland
Rocket Pack (2 programmers and 1 artist)
Germany
Yager (1 programmer)
England
Codemasters (1 programmer)
Norway
Snow Castle (1 artist)
The Game Assembly Showreel 2010
We just finished our 2010 showreel for The Game Assembly. It features various student assignments and game projects. Have a look at it.
I'm making a note here: Huge Success
Yep, it’s that time of year again.
Summer is here and the students just finished their spring semester. So to uphold our ancient old tradition we celebrated this triumph by sacrificing (eating) lots of cakes to honor the almighty gods of gaming.
The cake was a huge success!
See you all this fall and the best of luck to all our applicants who will be thoroughly tested, interview and probed during the next weeks.
The best developers in Sweden
We are happy to announce that our Programming teacher Niklas Hansson was selected the 57th best developer in Sweden according to IDG.se .
Niklas Hansson is the designer of our C++-curriculum and together with our three other teachers at The Game Assembly, Martin Hammarbrink, Kostas Gialitakis and Danny Antivalidis, the strong link to gamedeveloping reality.
To get a taste of Niklas Hanssons programming skills you can visit his blog Game School Gems , where he shares his knowledge in game programming.
First Person Shooter Games available!
We now have the two top ranked games from 08’s Game Project 7 available for download in our “Games” section. Head on over there and give them a try!
09's Point and Click game installers
We now have the two top ranked games from 09’s Game Project 2 available for download in our “Games” section. Head on over there and give them a try!
Don’t forget that this Thursday is the last day to apply for our programs this year.
29th of May - Test-day for those who apply for the programming course
For all those who apply for our programming course we need you to do a test in math, logic and physics. Since there are so many applying for the course we need to make a preliminary cut before we start calling people to interviews. These tests are meant to do so that we wont have to waste your or our time with interviews when your math skills will prevent you from passing.
We will of course have complimentary testing during the interview day and the results of those will be weighted into the final selection instead of the online tests.
We will mail all the people who have applied through our database with more information. So don´t forget the 29th of May. We will send you a test to your e-mail and you will have a limited time to solve the problems.
Real Time Strategy Games available!
We now have the two top ranked games from 08’s Game Project 6 available for download in our “Games” section. Head on over there and give them a try!
Codemasters visit The Game Assembly
Just before Nordic Game Conference, the 26th of May, Codemasters came to The Game Assembly to catch up with our students who are going out on internship this summer. The response we got was…
Gallery Update, 08's Game Project 7 Video
This video shows a few highlights from the seventh game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 08. The students had 9 weeks to finish this project parallel to working with regular school courses. The groups consisted of 5 art students and 5 programming students each.
The students have one more game projects ahead of them during their education.
Head over to the Gallery page to read more about the project and view the video.
Keep an eye out for the downloadable versions of the games which will be available later.
The FPS games are finished!
Our 08 students have been working hard on their 7:th game project. First Person Shooters this time. Deadline was today and they really put in a whole lot of work in these games.
Head over to the 08 Gallery page for screenshots from the games.
Trailers and downloadable versions of the fps-games will be available soon.
Open house the 24th of March
The Game Assembly had another succesful Open House at the 24th of March. Over 50 people showed up and we hope that all of them got a good idea of what we do here. Almost all our students were in our facilities and answered questions and showed what they were doing at the moment.
And don´t forget to join our our Facebookgroup
Meet and Greet the 23rd of March
The 23rd of March The Game Assembly invited 18 companies to meet our students. It was a great success and our students got a good idea of their future employment if they decide to stay in the region. The energy was strong in the room and the food and beverage tasted excellent thanks to Välfärden.
Cookie Monsters
As a part of their concept art and texturing course, our 09 students participated in conceptart.org ‘s Creature of the week challenge “The Real Cookie Monster”.
Have a look at some of the cookie monsters at the 09 gallery page
09's gallery update
Our 09 students are currently working hard on their concept art and texturing course.
Head over to the 09 gallery page for some samples of what they have produced.
Meet and Greet the Game Assembly
The 23rd of March The Game Assembly have invited companies with an interest in interactivity and 3D visualization. We want to present our students to a possible future and we have of course several game companies on board. For example Ubisoft Massive, Southend Interactive, Illusion labs , Serious Games (DK), Junebud and Tarsier Studios. Other companies that have announced that they are coming are TAT och Ugly Duckling .
OPEN HOUSE at The Game Assembly 2010
OPEN HOUSE at The Game Assembly on the 24th of March.
Date: 24th of March
Time: 17.00-20.00
Location: Kalendegatan 9, Malmö
We will give information all through the evening in the lecture room.
If you just want to talk to us or the students there will be opportunity for that.
There will be a person letting you in at our main door and you will need to sign in with your name, address, phone number and e-mailaddress due to security.
The Game Assembly on Facebook
Gallery Update, 09's Game Project 2 Video
This video shows a few highlights from the second game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 09. The students had 8 weeks to finish this project parallel to working with regular school courses. The groups consisted of 4 art students and 4 programming students each.
The students have 6 more game projects ahead of them during their education.
Head over to the Gallery page to read more about the project and view the video.
Keep an eye out for the downloadable versions of the games which will be available later.
A visit from the Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education
On the 11th of March we had a visit from Director-General Pia Enochsson, Margareta Landh and Per-Åke Bladh of the Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education. Hans Henecke, Enterprise Manager of region Skåne was invited to show our close collaboration with southern Sweden’s digital media investment. We also invited Martin Walfisz (CEO and founder of Planeto), Petter Sydow (Development Manager at Ubisoft Massive) and Orvar Säfström (board member and cultural journalist) to show our close collaboration with the business community.
As usual, it was really our students who contributed the most by showing their commitment and motivation.
In the evening we had an open house for people interested in applying to the school. There were roughly 30 curious people.
We are really looking forward to the applications and to the next open house, the 24th of Mars.
Welcome!
Gallery Update, 08's Game Project 6 Video
This video shows a few highlights from the sixth game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 08. The students had 9 weeks to finish this project parallel to working with regular school courses. The groups consisted of 5 art students and 5 programming students each.
The students have 3 more game projects ahead of them during their education.
Head over to the Gallery page to read more about the project and view the video.
Keep an eye out for the downloadable versions of the games which will be available later.
Prominent visitors on their way to TGA
The 11th of March the Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education sends their Director General Pia Enochsson.
As rather new in her position she wants to get to know their core business, education, and The Game Assembly is a good example since we have so excellent students.
Our Art teacher Kostas shares knowledge about shaders
Our game art teacher Kostas Gialitakis is working hard to be as inspirational as possible when it comes to game art. In his home page he has some interesting material that might come you readers in handy.
And as all personnel at The Game Assembly Kostas have a strong belief in sharing. We feel lucky having Kostas on board.
Game School Gems launched!
Niklas Hansson, The Game Assembly´s head game programming teacher, has today launched his blog with programming tutorials; Game School Gems.
For those who has a special interest in game programming this is the perfect spot to find more inspiration. For those who are interested in applying to The Game Assembly ´s game programming course, this is the blog to get the general picture of what our second year programmers learn to do.
Space Shooter Games available!
We now have the two top ranked games from 08’s Game Project 5 available for download in our “Games” section. Head on over there and give them a try!
New Game Art Teacher
The Game Assembly has SOFE-student doing his internship at our 3D department, Niklas Elling. He´s going to be here for about 20 weeks and he has already made our marketing material and held a lecture in UV-mapping for characters. We really appreciate his presence and hope he will develop as a 3D-instructor here. In the end we hope he´s got a good insight in both how we do games and how we make our students understand that they need to take charge over their own development.
08's rts preview and new 09's gallery
Our 08 students are working hard on their latest games. Real Time Strategy this time.
Head over to the 08 gallery page for a preview.
Our 09 students have been making weapons, buildings and low poly characters.
Have a look in the new 09 gallery page.
Gallery Update, 08's Game Project 5 Video
This video shows a few highlights from the fifth game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 08. The students had 10 weeks to finish this project parallel to working with regular school courses. The groups consisted of 5 art students and 5 programming students each.
Head over to the Gallery page to read more about the project and view the video.
Keep an eye out for the downloadable versions of the games which will be available on our later.
The Game Assembly got High score!
The Game Assembly have had a routine visit from the National Agency for Higher Vocational Education. They interviewed The Game Assembly´s staff, our students and our Board of Education, asking questions about what we do and how we do it.
I have translated two quotes from the report The Agency wrote after the visit. I think they say alot about about our education.
“The educational pace is very high, partly because there is no limit on how good a student can be, you can always be better.”
TGA09's top 3 Text Adventure Games...
…are now available for download in our Games section! Go get em while they’re hot.
Vertical Tic Tac Toe-tournament 09
The Game programmers at The Game Assembly ends their first term in challenging each other in a Vertical Tic Tac Toe-tournament. Everybody has written their own AI and the price is to meet….
2 new games available!
We now have the two top ranked games from 08’s Game Project 4 available for download in our “Games” section. Head on over there and give them a try!
The Game Assembly rocks!
The National Agency for Higher Vocational Education was here yesterday to check out our education. They met our staff, our students and our Board of education. I think we answered a thousand questions between 8.00 to 15.00. In the end the two agency-people people didn´t have anything to comment. They just congratulated us on having super students (and we know that) and we are now waiting for the report.
They also said they never had such well formulated answers from students before. Our students showed such commitment that they were astonished. I know that our students sometimes think that we drive them to hard but it´s just because we want them to become what they dream of – game developers!
I, Ann-Sofie, also want to say (again) that I am a lucky person who gets to work with the future of Sweden, with that I mean our students, and with my dream team crew, Danny Antivalidis, Kostas Gialitakis, Martin Hammarbrink and Niklas Hansson. The world is waiting!
ps. And thanks to our Board of education. You were well prepared, gave the agency a lot of facts and gave us a lot of love. ds
Gallery Update, various Game Art 08 artwork
We just updated our Gallery site with some recent artwork from the Game Art 08 students. Head over there to check it out!
Fall at The Game Assembly
So what’s new?
One of our many talented art students Simon Persson has a feature article in the latest issue of CGArenas digital magazine…
We have a The Game Assembly floor ball team since about a month ago…
This week we’re starting our figure drawing evenings here at the school…
And last but not least. Emma Mellander, in our board of education, visited us and brought a bag of stuff from Tokyo Game Show…
Our new name - The Game Assembly!
The Game Academy changes name to The Game Assembly today!
Hermods changes the name on The Game Academy to The Game Assembly. This is due to a dispute to the trademark with a German company plus we wanted a name that portrayed our education better. We educate both game artists and game programmers here at The Game Assembly. The games our students create and build they do together, both game artists and game programmers. And that´s because The Game Assembly work hard with with communication skills. Because it´s in the communication mistakes can appear. The word assembly means meeting place. forum and gathering – to put together. And that´s The Game Assembly. We meet up and put together games.
Gallery Update, 08's Game Project 4 Video
This video shows a few highlights from the fourth game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 08. The students…
Head over to the Gallery page to read more about the project and view the video.
I'm making a note here: Huge Success
So summer is here as most of you must have noticed by now, and what better way to celebrate these two great first terms at our school than with some “Portal cake”?
….
Illusion Labs guest lecture
We had Carl Loodberg and Andreas Alptun over from Illusion Labs to tell us about their company and what they do. They showed us their applications running on an Apple iPhone and…
2 new games available!
We now have the two top ranked games from 08’s Game Project 3 available for download in our “Games” section. Head on over there and give them a try!
Gallery Update, 08's Game Project 3 Video
This video shows a few highlights from the third game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 08. The students…
Head over to the Gallery page to read more about the project and view the video.
Keep an eye out for the downloadable versions of the games which will be available on our site in a day or two!
New programs at The Game Assembly
Is it time for the next step?
The Game Assembly starts up with two new educations; Casual Games – Entrepreneurship and Production and Middle Level Management in Digital Creative Industry
Check out our new "Games" section
We now have a “Games” section on webpage where you can check out our students game projects. The featured games are also available for you to download and try them yourselves…
OPEN HOUSE at The Game Assembly again
We have an OPEN HOUSE at The Game Assembly the 22nd of April.
Date: 22nd of April
Time: 17.00-20.00
Location: Kalendegatan 9, Malmö
Gallery Update, 08's Characters, Vehicle & Environment Assignments
Hey hey,
There’s an update over at our gallery showing of a few selected Character, Vehicle and Environment assignments that the students of Game Art 08…
Head over to the Gallery page to view the update!
Why choose The Game Assembly?
From day one the students at The Game Assembly get to make games. All in all they make eight complete games throughout their education. They start off with a text based adventure game and then move on to a point and click game and then a shoot-em-up game and so on and so on.
Gallery Update, 08's Game Project 2 Video
This video shows a few highlights from the second game project for both the Game Art and Game Programming students of 08….
Head over to the Gallery page to view the video.
So what's new?
Well, yesterday we opened our doors for the public to come and visit our school. We held presentations to inform all the visitors about our educations, people got to speak to the staff, talk to students, etc…
Paper article
Our education was featured in the February issue of “Vårt Malmö”, a monthly regional paper…
OPEN HOUSE at The Game Assembly
We have an OPEN HOUSE at The Game Assembly the 4th of March.
Date: 4th of March
Time: 17.00-20.00
Location: Kalendegatan 9, Malmö
At 17.30 and 18.30 we´ll gather everybody up in our lecture room and go through information about application and how we work here.
If you just want to talk to us or the students there will be opportunity for that.
The Game Assembly/Hermods - Support members in Dataspelsbranschen
Per Strömbäck from the Association of Swedish Game Developers, Dataspelsbranschen, made a visit to The Game Assembly. To have a good relationship with the Swedish game industry is essential to us and our education.
Gallery Updates!
We finally have some nice images in our student gallery. Head over there now and check them out!
Gabriel, Art Director from Ubisoft Massive
Gabriel Odgren, the Art Director at Ubisoft Massive, gave the Game Art students at The Game Assembly a load full of information, inspiration and valuable knowledge from his work.
Board of Education at The Game Assembly
We had a Board of Education Meeting the 3rd of February. We didn´t catch everybody in the picture but from the left there is; Ann-Sofie Sydow from The Game Assembly, Johan Rönnqvist game programmer at the Game Assembly, Samuel Henningsson from Netport…
Late Friday afternoon
The Game Assembly students has just started a new project this week. The activity is high and there are people sitting in groups talking about rigging, story, dates and so on and so on…On the picture you can see Felix in heavy thoughts. He is selected the art lead in his group and that means a whole lot more than just doing nice art.
Albert from Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore
Albert Lim from Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore came to The Game Assembly on his way to Karlshamn. We showed him our facilities and discussed possible collaborations in the future exchanging students.
Vertical Tic Tac Toe-tournament
The Game programmers at The Game Assembly ends their first term in challenging each other in a Vertical Tic Tac Toe-tournament. Everybody has written their own AI and the price is to meet….
Microsoft at TGA
The 14th of November Microsoft came to…
Swedish Game Awards
Swedish Game Awards came to The Game Assembly and and told us about their competition.
TGA at SACO-fair i Malmö
Cajsa won the Ipod at the SACO-fair in Malmö…
Starbreeze wishes TGA a Merry Christmas
We thank Starbreeze for sending us a sweet Christmas present; The Darkness game for both XBOX and PC. We welcome you to our humble establishment any time.
From Unity with Love
The Game Assembly had a house raming party and Sten Selander from Unity (Copenhagen) came with a nice Wii plus an extra Wiimote.
From Massive with Love
We thank Ubisoft Massive for sponsoring our recreational area with an XBOX and a PS3 including games.
