Hands-on learning
- Published: 8/12/2010 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: Database
Love and friendship are not usually associated with competitions, but at the recent Bangkok Game Jam, the experience of a fun environment, working in unison and planning together was shared by those who have a common love of game development.
Save My Life, the game from the winning team of Bangkok Game Jam.
Moreover, it reflected how the talent of the younger generation can pave the way for Thailand's goal of a creative economy.
Dave Sharp, Director of Binary Asylum, one of the five experts who facilitated the Bangkok Game Jam, told Database that game jams are a fantastic way for games development students and industry professionals to mix and transfer vital skills and information. Students always learn far quicker with a hands-on approach than in a more passive setting such as a lecture theatre, and game jams allow the speed and depth of learning to increase.
Academic studies are still very important, but there are some parts of game development that are more 'alive' when experienced with industry professionals, as well as the opportunity to learn all the tips and tricks that professional developers use to make their games as fun as possible.
"Games development is all about organisation and team work, and game jamming gives them a short, sharp experience at what can go wrong as well as right," Sharp said.
"Proper planning allows participating teams to have enough time to solve problems during the development process. Team work involving artists and programmers with game design ideas makes for successful development."
The winners were selected based on the creativity of their work and collaboration, including less support from the five mentors compared with others.
Tussarat Yawichai, Wallop Wattanarachothai, Wittaya Gasamwattana, Rachanon Khatiyon and Pinyo Tanrattanamonthon were the winning team of students from Chiang Mai University's College of Arts, Media and Technology, said that the event was a lot of fun as well as giving them the opportunity to work in a more systematic way as well as gaining advice from expert mentors during development.
The game jam lets them learn how to prioritise things, rather than action without planning. "When we faced big problems, we learned to skip those problems and did something that can be done more easily before going back to tackle the more tricky problems," one team member said.
The team brainstormed and evaluated the skills of each member and decided to develop a 3D first-person point-of-view shooting game that has a story about a tree shooting at humans who are trying to cut down the last tree on the planet.
"In the first 10 hours of the Game Jam, we were clearly seeing the talent of people here to design games," said Michael Kirby, Creative Guru at Twisted Studio in the United Kingdom.
"When creating a game, designers should think about branding and the purpose of the product. And there are a lot of ways to make money from games, especially social-based games, such as micro payments, or advertisements or selling small items for the game. If there are millions of people playing a game, if only one to three percent pay for an item, that is more than enough."
Pratarn Teeretada, Managing Editor at Corporation 4d, said that the game jam brought friendship from working together and students could learn in the fast track not just technical aspects but also to strengthen their hearts and overcome challenges in unison. The learning experience from game development would add value to real life.
Mallika Iamla-or, Arts Manager at the British Council, said the creative works from this event will be demonstrated to the public at the Thai-UK digital festival in March. It will be a large project including exhibitions, seminars and workshops to be held at the Thailand Creative & Design Centre.
The British Council believes in capacity building. One of the plans for the March event is for UK game developers to offer a workshop for kids who would like to become game developers. The workshop will train them in how to develop simple games using basic programming.
Mallika thinks if they are able to sell their games, even on a limited scale, this will make the kids proud of themselves and will encourage them to do more rather than waste their time just playing games.
"The UK is also very good at initiating game for education and for other purposes. As it is not easy to stop children playing video games, it would be better to find a way they can make use of the game, this is what I believe," she said. "I totally believe that our children have a lot of potential in this area and would like to support them to another level."
Creative Guru's Kirby also suggested that the country can see video games as a valuable education tool. And games are also powerful tools to bring people to engage in their community.
"The video game industry in the UK is worth over 1 billion (47 billion baht) each year and it contributes to the country's gross domestic product," he said.
For Thailand, he thinks that the country is aiming towards a knowledge-based economy in which promoting video games and animation are one key aspect, especially social games, web-based games though browsers and mobile games on smart phones, which has the most potential, and leveraging the country's strength in culture heritage into video games.
Sharp added that there are a couple of factors in building a new knowledge economy. "One is patience. It is a 20-year process to produce a knowledgeable and creative economy. It will not happen overnight," he said.
The UK has had a firm commitment to its creative economy since the early '90s and it is really beginning to show in every creative area - architecture, fashion, music, video games and product design.
Sharp made the point about education. The creative economy will develop quicker and better if the best people in their respective fields come and teach, talk and develop new products and businesses in Thailand, he said.
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