Germany's biggest video game developer is a – school
Only a couple of weeks after the beginning of the new semester 2009/10, Games Academy launches 28 student projects. With this high count of projects, Germany's special school for computer and video games in Berlin and Frankfurt simultaneously develops more games than the biggest developer studio of the country itself.
Our trainees acquire throughout their projects the ability to work in a professional environment and pave their way into the industry. The video games developed on the basis of said projects are renowned among the video game developers and are awarded with prizes, such as the Newcomer Award of the German Game Developer Award (2006, 2007 and 2008), as well as the Amigo Award in the category of Education/Game Design (2005). For the upcoming German Developer Award have been handed in once more 4 four projects.
Patrick Lehrmann, project manager of Games Academy since 2008, attributes enormous significance to student projects within the training:"The projects enable our young talents to connect their acquired knowledge with real working experiences. Claiming not only know-how from our students, but also social skills. The success of video game development, which consumes usually several years, is exceedingly dependent on the cooperation within a team."
Every semester at Games Academy, all students get together in interdisciplinary project teams to develop -as a community- concepts and realizations of new games. Project teams resemble real teams from the games industry by consisting of game designers, game artists, programmers and producer; whereas the final teams are tailor-made for the particular game. By this means, teams are formed of a minimum of three to a maximum of fourteen students to develop various genres such as jump 'n runs, ego-shooter mods or adventures.
The development takes place on every common platform, such as PC, Nintendo DS, Gamecube, Sony PSP and also Apple iPhone by using professional engines like CryEngine 3 or Trinigy's Vision Engine.
