Game on for new development programme

SINGAPORE — The local gaming industry is set to get a boost, with tertiary students here receiving hands-on training in game development that, for the first time, sees local industry partners help with the teaching.

The Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) yesterday officially launched the SUTD Game Lab — a successor to the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, the five-year collaboration between the Media Development Authority and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which ended last year.

With its multidisciplinary approach and ties to MIT, SUTD was a natural choice to host the Lab.

“After five years, we have gained a core group of experienced people,” said Mr Yeo Chun Cheng, MDA’s Assistant Chief Executive Officer of Industry and Executive Director of the Interactive and Digital Media Programme Office.

At the Lab’s inaugural Game Innovation Programme (GIP) in May, 32 tertiary students formed five teams that developed working prototypes of games.

During the 14-week programme, they got help from industry partners such as triple-A game firms with a local presence, like Ubisoft, and local start-up game studios.

The works developed by the students ranged from an Android sequel to Reign of Heroes, an existing mobile game on the market, to a space-adventure game commissioned by Pioneer Junior College to teach economics.

Industry partners spoke positively about the impact the Lab would have on the future of the local gaming industry.

“We are part of the game-development community in Singapore and want to see this community flourish. I think it’s programmes like these that really are a catalyst for that,” said Mr Paul Naylor, Co-Founder of LandShark Games, a local success story that worked with one of the GIP teams.

The team, Cube Isle, developed Tower of Myr, a turn-based mobile strategy game in which the player defends a magical tower from evil forces.

Students said the programme gave them a realistic experience of the working world.

“We get to know local game-development studios, what their constraints are (and) what the market is like,” said Mr Jason Lim, 25, a member of Cube Isle and a student at the NUS School of Computing.

“You get to work on your own title (and) develop it,” said fellow coursemate Xu Juntang. “You don’t need to start a company to experience these things.”

June Yang