South African Serious Games Institute launches inaugural GAMEshop

With the current explosive growth of game and mobile app development for iOS and Android devices, those keen on getting started in game development locally, will have the opportunity to do so. 

 

The South African Serious Games Institute (SGI-SA), which is housed at the Vaal Triangle Campus of the North West University, has announced that it is holding the first of its annual Winter GAMEshop events.

 

The five day workshop is aimed at everyone from the curious non-programmer to the seasoned developer who wishes to delve into the world of game and mobile app development. However, the clock is ticking, as the workshop starts in two days time. 

The five day course will be held at North West University: Vaal Triangle Campus (in Vanderbijlpark) from 27 June to 3 July. The requirements of attending are minimal, with no previous experience in programming being a prerequisite, but rather a “passion for IT and mild dose of creativity.” Additionally, the course is limited to forty participants.

 

 

The stated goal of the GAMEshop is to “teach participants about the concept of Serious Games and how the fundamentals of Serious Games are applied to industry needs.” To this end, the GAMEshop will guide participants through the three core activities of smartphone application development, namely conceptualisation, design and development.

 

The course is designed, endorsed and partly presented by Coventry University, and thus, upon completing the course, attendees will receive a certificate of attendance from the university. No less importantly, participants will also leave with a fully functional mobile app designed by themselves.

 

According to SGI-SA, the course has a weekend between days 3 and 4 to allow participants the time to “expand, tweak and optimise their app” in the comfort of their own environment. This also means that students will still have face-to-face time with the experts with regard to any issues encountered during their weekend development journey.

 

 

According to SGI-SA, there are “many individuals lurking in the belly of creativity” but who feel intimidated by the stigma attached to writing a game.  This, it believes has led to “many great and possibly revolutionary games” remaining unearthed.

According to Prof. Herman van der Merwe, the dean of the Faculty of Economic Sciences and Information Technology at North West University, there has never been a better time to take gaming more seriously than right now. He added that since SGI-SA’s launch in November, various concepts and working practices have been integrated within the faculty to ensure that new courses and commercial activity will be introduced in the coming months.