UoB - First Impressions

I've wanted to work in games ever since I was in primary school, having grown up with an old dusty PlayStation 1 in my family apartment in Poland to eventually upgrading to the old family laptop a few years into beginning my new life in England (~7-8 years old). Having had this influence from prominently my dad and my older brother, who've already been deep into video games themselves and both being probably the most creative and smartest people I've ever met, I wanted to be just like them; having such a passion for something I could take it forward with me for my entire life.

Now, it's worth mentioning that neither of them have gone into the games industry, so me deciding to pursue it was almost like 'taking the next step' in a way. I didn't just want to experience stories created and developed by other people, but also go through that process myself. So, naturally, finding the right university for me that I found both fun and interesting while still maintaining a strong focus on valuable information and education was imperative; my choices were between a few unnamed universities and Bradford.

One seemed stiff, another seemed dull, and I was never realistically going to make an open day to the last to check out the city, but Bradford was the first open day I attended and it stuck with me ever since. I remember actually walking around, loving the vibe, and having an actual opportunity to speak with Rob and a current student; they actually seemed interested in what I had to say, keeping me active in the conversation, unlike some of the other schools which all seemed to just run off of slideshows and a few meekly asked questions by shy students. It was a nice burst of energy that I definitely felt I needed, and ever since I've basically decided on Bradford immediately.

I did take a gap year before coming, so quite honestly I felt quite disorientated before arriving; I was used to the 30-ish people class where everyone was signed onto the same course and doing the same thing. Coming to my first lecture, there were people from different courses in the same lecture and people from different years, too. It threw me off a little bit, but I wouldn't say I dislike that, if anything it allows you to get another point of view and sometimes even some guidance from some of the more experienced students.

About my actual first impressions on the course, however, I do wish that we didn't have to use Maya (although I can feel myself and others saying that just because we're not used to it, and I won't scoff at a free subscription to any software on behalf of the uni) since I personally believe Blender is, well, better. Personal biases aside, I think I'll enjoy biting my teeth into something new and gaining some valuable experience. The only issue I've had so far is everything is a bit, well, basic, but it's understandable since the point is to build you up from the ground up rather than jump straight into intermediate/advanced techniques and ideas. I'll just put it down to my own impatience.

Creative Studio Production was fun so far, I enjoyed the slight focus on individual creativity and how to make good use of it, contrasting it to something like college where you're given a brief and you have to meet this and that requirement within a certain theme, leading everyone down a very narrow and linear path. I like the idea of it being very vague, and you're left to your own devices to figure out what to make, although I admit I do sometimes get stuck on where to start.

Computer programming for games has probably been my favourite so far. The classroom was quiet, probably because its 9am on a Friday, but I think C# is an interesting programming language and I've always wanted to learn it anyway. It was quite similar to Visual Basic with the Console.WriteLine("") and so on, but again I think it'd be quite fun to get my hands on something new that I'm not used to yet. I was mostly considering specialising in 3D when I was still at college, most likely because that's all they had us do, but this made me consider a different pathway that I might enjoy even more.

One day, I'm hoping to be able to create games in the vein of Baldur's Gate 3, Project Zomboid, Quake, Team Fortress, Half Life, as they're probably the games I enjoy the most at the moment, and have done for a while.