Professional/Short Course Commercial Games Development
Page last updated 12 October 2023
Introduction
Skills Bootcamps are flexible courses giving successful applicants the opportunity to build up tech skills and fast-track them to an interview with an employer. They are being developed by the Government as part of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee, in partnership with employers, providers and local authorities, to help people develop the skills that are in demand in their local area and get a better job.
About this Skills Bootcamp
This bootcamp introduces games development and how to create immersive, entertainment experiences in context of what makes game products engaging and commercially successful. The first half of the course is designed to build professional skills and software competency. The second half specialises in the development of a "vertical slice" game demo for prospective employers from commercial studios as a portfolio piece, or to form the basis of a portfolio ahead of self-employment. There is also the opportunity to learn about the application of games technology for commercial purposes other than those solely for entertainment.
This 16-week programme will provide you with an overview of how games are developed, towards a goal of polished, engaging entertainment products across a range of sectors. Central to your experience will be training in Unity; a game engine and real-time development platform with many applications both inside and outside the entertainment industry.
With sessions led by industry developers and academics with experience of working on published "AAA" and "indie" games, this bootcamp will help you define and refine a trajectory towards jobs with existing games companies, but also how to set up a business if you plan to start out on your own or work as a freelancer. The first half of the bootcamp covers general professional and computational skills development. While the second is all about your game projects and tailoring them so you are better placed to enter the industry.
An important element of the bootcamp will be practice-based learning. We will embed personal and professional learning and development into our core delivery to ensure that you develop the personal and interpersonal skills required to operate successfully as a professional within your chosen industry.
Who is it for?
The Skills Bootcamps are open to all applicants provided they are aged 19 or over, are recently unemployed, self-employed, looking to move into a new job role, or coming out of furlough and seeking a pathway to a digital career.
Learners will engage with 16 weeks of flexible delivery, blending real-time interaction (via online technology) with interactive online resources. Some real-time content delivery will be recorded and made available for later review and flexible support will be available outside of formally timetabled sessions.
Entry requirements
Learners must:
- Be aged over 19 years old
- Have the right to live and work in the UK (UK Citizen or valid visa, currently living in the UK)
- Agree to provide mandatory personal data and supplementary information on their employment outcomes for up to 8 months following completion of the Skills Bootcamp
- Be looking for a new role, new opportunities or increased responsibility/promotion to a different role which utilises the skills acquired through their Skills Bootcamp
- Applicants must be from the South West region (Swindon, Bristol, Bournemouth, Exeter, Plymouth, Poole, Gloucester, Truro, Taunton, Cheltenham, Bath and Torquay)
Be either
- recently unemployed, within the last 12 months
- self-employed, looking to develop their skills to increase their career potential
- employed, but looking to move into a new job role, or seeking a pathway to a new career
- employed, where you wish to gain increased responsibilities/new role within your current employment place or, your employer wishes you to develop your skills and is committed to paying 30% of the bootcamp costs*
*Employers will be able to send existing employees who meet the Skills Bootcamp eligibility requirements on this training at an impressive 70% discount of the standard fee. Interested employers should contact us directly via Enquire Now form below.
Structure
Content
This Skills Bootcamp is structured as follows:
Weeks 1-2: Induction / Basic Tools and Professional Skills
- Introduction to information systems and digital technology, key technologies for on-line learning, communicating, collaborating and presenting.
- Understanding requirements, setting objectives, planning and time-management, professional behaviour and professional ethics.
- Working with others, team dynamics, roles, behaviours and personalities.
Weeks 3-6: Computational Thinking & Practice
- Abstract and algorithmic thinking, formulating problems, organising and analysing data, models and simulations, generalising problems and finding efficient and effective solutions
- Designing and implementing software: requirements elicitation, design techniques, programming language constructs and data types, testing.
Over the course of the first six weeks, a series of game development support events such as meet-ups, socials, tech talks, game jams and even field trips will be made available (where possible). These events are intended to provide a safe space to learn more about game development, to ask questions and get to know the local game development community before the dedicated phase of game development that follows.
Weeks 7-12: Commercial Games Technology
- Unity basics: Creating projects, importing assets, creating 3D immersive environments, prefabs, templates.
- Learning the language of Unity (scripts, interactive content, collisions, scenes, animation)
- Production in Unity.
- Weeks 11-12 will see you complete your own mini-project using skills developed in the Unity bootcamp.
Weeks 13-16: Preparation for Employment
- Practical industry advice, personality tests, choosing the right role/career pathway, CV and portfolio development, cover letter writing, pitching, networking, job hunting, attending interviews and interview skills.
On completing the Skills Bootcamp, you will have acquired new digital and technical skills relevant to your chosen sector. Alongside these useful skills, the bootcamp offers you an opportunity to develop the key entrepreneurial, practical and interpersonal skills required to succeed in self-employment. While your personal and interpersonal skills will assist you to quickly establish yourself as a valuable, work-ready talent with employers.
Features
Placements
Creating pathways to employment
How are employers involved in the delivery of this Skills Bootcamp?
UWE Bristol is an award winning, TIGA (Trade industry for Games Association) accredited provider of undergraduate and postgraduate Games Technology education. Through UWE's internal PlayWest serious-games studio and the network of its alumni and their own "spin-out" companies, industry professionals will be recruited to co-lead bootcamp sessions alongside academic staff.
Beyond games, a relationship with the Foundry at UWE Bristol also offers the prospect of stakeholder engagement in the bootcamp from broader fields of aerospace, engineering, creative technologies, software engineering, data science, digital media and the arts.
Employers will be involved throughout the bootcamp, developing and reviewing content, providing industry insight, advice on employability and preparation for interviews during the final four-week block.
What are the routes to employment following successful completion?
The UK has the largest video games industry in Europe, and is important both economically and culturally; contributing over £1.8 billion towards GDP in the year to November 2018. UWE has strong links with creative industries and technology employers across the region, and in particular with Bristol-based SMEs, tech start-ups and technology incubators with particular relevance to games technology: It was a founding partner of the Bristol Games Hub, The Bristol VR lab, and also the Pervasive Media Studio, while the game jam events hosted by the Foundry are some of the largest in the UK with over two hundred attendees.
Creative industries for the Bristol region are 50% more productive than the UK average, while Bristol has been classified as a creativity and innovation hotspot (NESTA) and one of only three hubs outside of London with the potential to "go global" due to its strengths in animation, broadcast, digital media and games that is home to Aardman Digital and the BBC, with which UWE also has established relationships.
Games technology also has crossover with a growing number of associated industries and even formerly unrelated sectors as the world "pivots to digital". There is increasing relevance for game development experience in other STEAM destinations (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics). Participants will also be supported to attend interviews and provided with follow up signposting to further training and employment opportunities through local UWE and IoC national resources.
Study facilities
UWE Bristol has invested significantly in online resources to support your blended learning study. We use the 'Blackboard Collaborate' online platform to deliver an integrated learning experience to you and you also have access to a vast number of professional and academic journals and databases online through the UWE Bristol library.
Find out more about the facilities and resources UWE has to offer.
Prices and dates
Supplementary fee information
Course Dates
This Skills Bootcamp currently has no funded cohorts available, please complete our expression of interest form to be kept informed of future opportunities.
| Cohort | Start Date | Location |
Please note that you will be required to make a commitment to the following for the duration of 16 weeks: 12 hours per week of timetabled activity 18 hours per week of supported activity 18 hours per week of self-study | TBC A full timetable will be issued prior to the start of the course. | Online |
Course fees
Places are fully funded by the Institute of Coding (I.o.C.) for applicants who meet the entry requirements.
How to apply
How to apply
In order to confirm that you meet the necessary requirements for a place on this course, please note that once your application has been approved you will be required to provide the following supporting information to formally accept you, as required by the university:
- A copy of photographic proof of ID (i.e. driver's licence/passport).
- For non-UK students, this must be a copy of your passport and proof of immigration status (i.e. visa)
- Agree to a formal Learner Agreement
Once accepted on the course, you will be registered as a UWE Bristol student and issued a UWE Bristol email and password, to enable access to the required online resources.
This Skills Bootcamp currently has no funded cohorts available, please complete our expression of interest form below to be kept informed of future opportunities.
| Cohort | |
| TBC | Expression of Interest |
We are collecting data on Skills Bootcamp applicants, candidates and participants to help the Department of Education (DfE) understand how well the courses are working and if they are achieving their outcomes. For further information about the Privacy Notice or queries about how DfE handles your personal information, please contact the Data Protection Officer at: https://form.education.gov.uk/service/Contact-the-Department-for-Education or write to: Department for Education, Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, London, SWlP 3BT.
For further information
- Email: Please contact us using the expression of interest form link above.
- Telephone: +44 (0)117 32 81043 (option 1, then option 3)