ITI Articles

Six months ago a group of 12 programmers and artists came together under the guidance of international game experts, with the vision of creating an original game concept based upon life after the apocalypse.

They succeeded, and Goliath, a unique multiplayer PC game developed at Media Design School in Auckland, is one of the world's most complex and innovative computer game projects produced entirely by students.

Goliath's Lead Designer, Stephen Harris describes the game concept as, "Goliath takes on the Road Warriors, in the style of Mad Max." Goliath goes beyond simple 'drive around and shoot everything' mechanics generally associated with vehicle combat and action-style games. The player is placed in a team environment with goals such as repairing buildings, escorting unarmed vehicles and working with other players to prevent the discovery of key locations.

"It is the best student produced game I have seen to date," commented Ben Brudenell, Lead Artist for Sydney game studio Team Bondi after he had played the game. Team Bondi develop next generation games for PlayStation as part of an exclusive agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Mario Wynands, President of the New Zealand Game Developers Association and Managing Director of New Zealand's most successful game development studio Sidhe Interactive, also gave high praise to the Goliath project team. "In developing the Goliath demo to such a high standard, the Media Design School students have demonstrated a high level of professionalism and capability, both as a team and as individuals", explains Mario. "Members of this team will no doubt go on to become great contributors to commercial game development studios," said Mario.

The Goliath project team were final year students studying the 16-month Graduate Diploma of Game Development at Media Design School. These students left respectable careers in associated programming and design industries to pursue lifelong ambitions to develop video games for a living.

For an industry that generates greater annual revenue than the entire Hollywood film industry, the jump into the world of games offered more than an alluring appeal. It presented the opportunity to combine their hobbies with a lucrative career.

"The Graduate Diploma of Game Development was exactly the course I was looking for," explains Cameron Hart, Lead Programmer for Goliath. "It gave me solid, industry-based training for entering the games business. During the course we were trained by some of the top people in the industry and I had the opportunity to work on an original game project with a really talented team. We are all very proud of Goliath, and from the feedback received so far, it is as good or better than any current student game project produced internationally," said Cameron. "We couldn't have done it without Media Design School." Cameron has recently been hired as a Senior Programmer for Sidhe Interactive who are currently working on major game titles for PS2, Xbox, PSP and PC.

Media Design School's Graduate Diploma of Game Development allows students to specialise in either Game Programming or Game Art. The Game Art (content design) stream requires expert creative talent and artistic ability. Applicants come from backgrounds in graphics, art and multimedia. During the course they will learn 3D character modelling, rendering and animation as well as the creative and production processes involved in game design.

The programming of each individual game requires technical innovation, high-level analytical ability and mathematical skills. Applicants for the Game Programming stream will generally have previous qualifications in information technology, computer science or programming. During the course they will learn the technical side of game development including programming languages, physics and mechanics for games and Artificial Intelligence.

The graduate diploma is designed to replicate industry production practices and the curriculum has been designed by key industry practitioners. The close industry ties allow graduates opportunities to gain employment with prominent game development studios.