Where Would You Think

Kieran and Kostas came to see us today. They both studied at Hull and now work for Rare. They are part of a series of game company visits that are taking place at the moment as our students show off what they have been doing, with a view to getting into the games business.

Kostas did our game development MSc course some time back. He is famous in the department as the winner of one of our programming events. I took some pictures this afternoon, but I've not got them with me at the moment, so I'll put them up later. Instead, here is a blast form the past, Kostas is the one right at the front looking thoughtful (as well he might..).

Thanks for coming guys, it was good to see you.

Once again there is a Hull posse at GDC 08. Warren is already busy adding new content to his course for next year based on what he saw at one of the sessions that he has been to. If you want to find out more about the world's largest Game Development Conference you can read the reports from Rob's blog, starting here.

One of our ex-students, Steven Yau, has written a nice article for gamecareerguide.com about how to break into video game development. It is well worth a read.

Hull Com Soc had a fragfest today. I took along the big camera and the fancy lenses to try and grab some pictures. vivaladan was kind enough to let me help with some goes at World In Conflict which was a hoot (although I think I liked it best because we won). I'm going to get a copy of the game and turn up early at the next event with my laptop. Oh yes.

The pictures turned out OK as well.

Game in Progress

How to stop your laptop overheating

Artistic Camerashake

There are some more on Flickr.

We have just heard from Microsoft that Hull has got four teams into the UK Imagine Cup Software Development finals. Again. That makes it three years in a row.

Congratulations to Stuart, Kamilla, Callum, Ashley, David, Kenny, Sam, Nicholas, Anthony, Jon and Jonathan who make up the winning teams. Well done everyone! What is especially interesting is that at least two of the teams are made up of first year students who only joined the department in September last year. This is a very impressive performance.

Last year (and the year before) we also managed to win the UK Finals and go on to the world finals, here's hoping for similar success this year.

The next stage for each team is a trip to Manchester to further develop their competition entries and perfect their pitching skills, leading to a Dragon's Den style final in London later this year.