Introduction to Video Games Creation course (IVGCC) is by far the most popular Xamk Open University online course of all time. Since the beginning of 2020, there are already 50,300 visits to the course page and 13,000 registered students from 60 different countries. This blog introduces the course leader Jan Storgårds and some of our students from India and Finland.
The course leader is a game developer himself
Much thanks of IVGCCs success belongs to IVGCC leader, Dr. Jan Storgårds, CEO of Cambridge Gamechanger ltd. Jan has been working with the IT industry since the 80s, parttaking for example the first generation of Suunto smart watches. Jan has a Dr.Sc. degree from Finnish Aalto University on video games development. Jan is also a game developer himself.
– In the mid 80s I started developing games with my friends using first home computers like Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum and Spectravideo. It was only me and my two friends out of 200 people in our school interested in ‘computer science’. I made mostly sports, adventure, arcade and text-based games, Jan tells us.
IVGCC is organized by a small team of professionals with over 20 years of experience in the gaming industry. The course is provided by South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Xamk, Cambridge Gamechanger ltd (CADGI -Cambridge Academy of Digital Gaming and Innovation), and Cypherdelic ltd. Course professionals include Matthew Dickson and James Shepherd from Cypherdelic ltd and Maarika Storgårds, course coordinator.
Affordable education as a passion
Jan is passionate about providing affordable online education for those who have no access to study modern technologies such as video games. The goal of IVGCC is to teach how to design and develop video games by teaching skills of the future in an enjoyable way.
Among other responsibilities, Jan´s role on IVGCC is to make sure students study and complete as many modules as possible.
– Students can complete some or all of the provided 10 modules. The first modules provide an introduction to the games industry, data analytics, innovation in games, and history of games. After the warm-up modules IVGCC includes a variety of game development tasks with professional game development tools. The course factors in arts and business video games, smart phone games, card combat games and text based games, Jan tells us.
For instance, I have read over 1000 essays from the students about their most favourite game experience. I could write a book about those, IVGC course leader Jan speculates.
Most of the young people that play video games don´t know how they are made
According to Jan, the games industry generates much innovation that young people are not aware about. Most of the young people that play video games do not know how they are made.
– Introduction to Video Games Creation provides an equal opportunity for anyone around the world with the access to internet and a computer to get a glimpse of this hidden universe of game development. The online course is free of charge, and it does not require any previous knowledge on the subject, Jan emphasizes.
Introducing IVGCC students
IVGCC encouraged swapnil to develop his first video game
I am Swapnil Dey, from India. I joined IVGCC on the recommendation of a friend of mine, as I am pursuing Video Game Designing. And I am glad that I did, because this was a great course to learn from. I learned a lot about the different processes of Video Games Creation, the tools used, the skillset required, the economical situation of Video Games and a lot more.
On a smaller scale, I had the opportunity to learn programming language and use it in one of the many interesting modules, to learn different software usages including Krita, Blender and Unity and to make my own first Video Game!
I am currently using my knowledge to build my portfolio as a game designer. Then there is the best part of the course, the teachers. All of them are very professional at what they do and are very helpful, especially Jan Storsgård, the course instructor, who helped me throughout the course whenever I was stuck in a difficult spot.
Shubham is pursuing a career in game development
My name is Shubham Kumar and I am from Noida in India. I am pursuing Btech. My background is from Computer Science and Engineering with specialization in Graphics and Gaming at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies. I started studying IVGCC for polishing my skills and to learn something new. In this course I learnt many things like Blender Modelling, Krita, Unity scripting, Card Games and Texture creation.
I am planning to use my knowledge and skills to pursue a career in Game Development. The best part of this course is that it offers a very detailed knowledge about every concept. Of course, it is also great that the course is offered free of charge.
video games development is a way for jasfiq to mix storytelling and it-engineering
My name is Jasfiq Rahman and I hail from Assam, India. I am an engineering student (I.T.) and happened to find this course by chance on Instagram. Game Dev piqued my interest, and being a budding novelist, it gives me an avenue to mix my storytelling with the professional course I am currently pursuing. Ever since then I was completely hooked.
Apart from IVGCC, I have also completed a number of courses on the subject on Udemy and Coursera, and intend on continuing down this path. And suffice to say, it was all because of XAMK’s IVGCC.
IVGCC PRovided jenni hands-on experience in video games development
My name is Jenni Mellberg and I live in southern Finland. I started studying IVGCC as the description of the course
was very appealing to me. I had some pre-knowledge in programming before joining the course in web development. I’ve been gaming throughout my life starting from chess hand game console when I was 4 years old to Commodore 64 to Nintendo, console games to PC gaming.
The course really helped me to start thinking about different games one could develop and gave me real life hands-on experience to the actual creating processes, what it takes to create games. I’ve learned to use Krita with a help of drawing pad and adding new functionalities to actual games in C#. To name one assignment was to add a card and it’s functions to a card game.
The course provides awesome video materials for learning. There are very easy to follow step by step materials. I really like the fact that the videos for the course are provided from people who have released their own games, and they were able to give us hints in the teaching materials of real life experiences, and what they went thought when creating and finishing their games. They were able to tell what kind of struggles there is when creating a game, the do’s and do not’s. The course leader has been a great help during the course, and very supportive both on emails and forums.
I warm-heartedly recommend this course for everyone who is even in the slightest bit interested in game development!
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Anyone is welcome to enrol in Introduction to Video Games Creation.
The Xamk Open University course is free of charge and we accept new students every month.
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