Former students’ work recognised as some of the best at EXG expo
BA (Hons) Games Design graduates from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) are some of the stand out names at one of the biggest industry expositions in Europe.
The EXG ‘Rezzed’ games festival at Birmingham’s NEC showcased hundreds of new games, with UCLan’s alumni featuring heavily in teams announced in the ‘Best of’ category.
White Paper Games, which comprises six former students from the games design course, was selected for its new game The Occupation while another graduate, Scott Swarbrick, was also recognised as part of Milky Tea Studios’ ‘Best of’ award for its HyperBrawl Tournament game.
"EGX is a huge industry event in the UK and it’s great to see people starting to recognise the studio and the games we’re creating – it definitely feels as though we’re gaining good momentum as a team."
Pete Bottomley, Co-Founder and Game Developer at White Paper Games who graduated from UCLan in 2010, said: ““Being highlighted as a game to watch at a show like EGX is an incredible platform for us to build upon moving off production and into finalising The Occupation for release next year. EGX is a huge industry event in the UK and it’s great to see people starting to recognise the studio and the games we’re creating – it definitely feels as though we’re gaining good momentum as a team whilst slowly growing and continuing to work on the games we think are most interesting.
“The course at UCLan provided incredible guidance and support when deciding to go it alone with our small start-up and continues to provide direction to this day. By studying on both the BA and MA courses, we developed concepts whilst thinking creatively and independently. We started the studio in 2010 and we’re now a team of nine, six of whom are UCLan alumni. We hope to continue our studio growth whilst also teaching and feeding everything that we learn and discover back into the games course at UCLan to help support and inspire the next generation of game developers.”
Senior lecturer in games design at UCLan Bev Bush congratulated her former students. She said: “We have many fantastic alumni across a broad range of disciplines within games and this was emphasised at EGX this year by the presence of so many of our graduates showcasing their games."
"By supporting and integrating the activity of our graduates into our course we maintain this innovative and dynamic team."
“White Paper Games is making a very impressive impact in the world of games. It has repeatedly gained extremely impressive reviews in the press for its games Ether One and The Occupation, which combine a mixture of academic research with powerful gaming. It’s highly feasible that our alumni activity could be documented in the gaming history books of the future.”
Bev added: “By supporting and integrating the activity of our graduates into our course we maintain this innovative and dynamic team. Graduate success emphasises the effectiveness and high profile of the course and encourages other students to form companies for the future.”
Other successful graduates from the course were also present at EXG; Sarah Akers attended with Paw Print Games to showcase Blood Zombies and Saija Sipilä of Rebellion Games who gave a talk at the event.