After my last talk at the University of Teesside, I was eager to talk about something more technical; to give students some real-world techniques that I’ve encountered during my work in the industry, rather than what was essentially a biography. I spoke to some friends who were at Teesside while I was there, and they felt similarly. We decided, then, to make a day of it – a whole event when alumni could travel up and each give a talk on a topic that interests them.
The event was planned and organised with the help of Fred Charles, who had arranged my last talk, and featured four alumni in total: two designers and two programmers. In the end, there was a good range of presentations, which afterwards led to some interesting discussion. In all, the speakers were:
- Me, talking about multi-platform asset and build management using make and other UNIX tools.
- Peter J. B. Lewis, talking about working as a programmer in middleware, based on his experience at Geomerics in Cambridge.
- Luke Nockles, covering a variety of aspects of design, including game design, level design, and HUD and UI design.
- Steve Lee, talking about the role of design, getting a job in the industry, the meaning and value of elegance, and games as education / art.
The event was held on the 25th February, 2009. Slides from my talk are reproduced above, in Adobe .pdf format.
Disclaimer: I should make it clear that I wrote these slides and gave the talk myself, and as such they represent my own views and not those of Zoë Mode or Kuju Entertainment Ltd.