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House of Games #63 — TGA — the Military School of Game Development

Otto Wretling
32 min readFeb 28, 2024

I hope you are ready for a different type of game developer education; Ida Fontaine tells us all about “The Military School of Game Development”, a.k.a The Game Assembly! Put on your best camouflage and shine those boots as we dive into the newest episode of House of Games!

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/house-of-games/message

Chapters

00:00 Episode Intro
01:14 Ida Fontaine Introduces Herself
01:41 What Is the Game Assembly?
03:16 What Does Ida Do at The Game Assembly?
04:34 What Is Procedural Art?
08:10 What Is Technical Art?
08:54 A Day in the Life of a Student at The Game Assembly
10:26 What Is Agile?
13:55 What the Industry Think of The Game Assembly Method
14:50 A Day in the Life… Continued
24:08 The Application and Admission Process at The Game Assembly
31:04 Exploring the Reasons for Joining the School
34:35 Future Plans and the Vision for the Game Assembly
38:47 The Game Assembly’s In-House Game Engine
40:06 Does the Game Assembly Create Artistic Freedom or Conformity?
47:52 Episode Outro

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Transcript

Episode Intro

[00:00:00] Rune: Halli, hello everyone and welcome to the most assembled podcast in the world, House of Games. Today, I’m grouped up with my host, Mr. Otto! But what is an assembly without a special guest? Well, I don’t know. I don’t even know what assembly means, but I’m sure our special guest Ida Fontaine will tell us all about that in today’s episode of House of Games.

[00:00:20] Otto: Welcome everyone to this week’s episode of House of Games and especially welcome to our guest for this episode. So I think as we usually do on this podcast, without further ado, Ida, would you like to just, I guess, tell us your real name and, a little bit, about, what you do?

Ida Fontaine Introduces Herself

[00:01:14] Ida Fontaine: My name is Ida Fontaine, and I am the Lead Educator at The Game Assembly Stockholm. so that means that I am sort of administrative, jack of all trades here at our Stockholm school together with my colleague Freja. And then we have, some more people like me, at, down in Malmö at our other school.

What Is the Game Assembly?

[00:01:41] Otto: Cool, and I, I think first of all for our viewers, could you tell us just, sort of, a helicopter view or an overview over The Game Assembly as an education place, I guess. You know, how many schools you have, how many students, what do you teach, a little bit of that.

[00:01:59] Ida Fontaine: Yeah, so we’re a game development school. We are, currently in two on site locations, which is Stockholm and Malmö. And we do also have a school in the UK that has started quite recently and I’m very sorry but I don’t know that much about our UK school because it’s run very differently from the two schools in Sweden, but in total we have about, 175, 180 students in Sweden, and we educate game programmers, game artists, level designers, procedural artists, game animators, and technical artists.

[00:02:51] So a lot of different programs, but it differs a little bit between Stockholm and Malmö. Up in Stockholm, we have programmers, artists, and level designers, and also, procedural artists. And then the first three are repeated in Malmö, but down there they have animators and technical artists as well.

What Does Ida Do at The Game Assembly?

[00:03:16] Otto: Cool. And, tell us about, your role a little bit more, like what you do and what’s your, sort of, involvement with the education?

[00:03:26] Ida Fontaine: So my involvement is that, first of all, I’m all the educator’s boss in Stockholm. So, I do all of the, you know, HR things here in Stockholm, but the most fun part about my job is that I’m education lead for our game programmers and level designers here in Stockholm, which means I sort of oversee the education. I mean, we have very competent and very good educators, but I help them in making sure we give our students the best possible education during their time here at The Game Assembly.

[00:04:08] Rune: yeah I, read on the website it says Level Designers, Game Programmers. Graf-, “Spelgrafiker”, I guess that’s Graphic Designers, ah, Game Artist, and, Game Animators and here’s the Technical Art, Procedural Artist, and Linear Algebra, and Art Trust. What are those three?

What Is Procedural Art?

[00:04:34] Ida Fontaine: So basically I would say technical artist and procedural artist, they’re quite similar to each other. It’s, imagine you have a programmer here and then you have a game artist here and they have a little love child. Then a technical artist or a procedural artist is born. So our Procedural Artist program is our newest and it’s as long as the Programming, Artist and Level Design program. So it’s two years on location here at school and then 30 weeks of internship. And it’s a very new and exciting thing where they focus a lot on how to develop things procedurally. So that means that instead of just creating everything, like maybe an artist would, you try to find technical solutions in order to procedurally generate things.

[00:05:30] So one of the good examples is that, for example, if you want to make a staircase, then you can make a staircase and then you program it to behave in certain ways. So you have different sliders and you can put the slider up and then you get a longer staircase and you can put another slider up and down and that would change how tall the steps are on the staircase.

[00:06:02] I’ve also seen a super cool thing on LinkedIn where it’s a procedural artist that created an octopus and then coding it so that when you sort of drag this octopus over a box, then the different arms will, or tentacles will behave very naturally following the octopus over this box to move in a natural way even though it’s all digital.

[00:06:29] Rune: That sounds awesome but it’s also the, I have this I’m a programmer and an artist at the same time but I don’t like procedurally generated things because I think that’s cheating but at the same time today all day programming the NPCs in my game to act in a very natural way that you as the player don’t understand is, they’re actually sort of acting in a similar way but I can simply play with the the inspector to make them act differently so as a player you don’t see that in the, under the hood it is the same script so I’m basically doing the thing that i hate which is In quotes, cheating, but at the same time, I think it’s so fun, because it’s like, this is really the problem solving of the solving-ness.

[00:07:16] Like, it’s so much problem solving, and when you get it right, which I got like 30 minutes before we started recording, it’s just like champagne, and like, woohoo, because it works, and it’s just, been sitting here for 8 hours straight, trying to figure out how to make the janitor act in a certain way, versus the mayor of this game I’m making, so…

[00:07:33] Ida Fontaine: For example, like um, for example, if you create a building and the building is supposed to be a bit run-down and then your product manager, your lead, shows up and is like, oh no, but we should have the hole in the wall over here instead. Then instead of having to redraw the whole thing, then if you’re a procedural or a technical artist, you can find ways to sort of just move that hole in the wall over there and it just magically looks good. But so that is the procedural artist program.

What Is Technical Art?

[00:08:10] Ida Fontaine: And then we have a technical artist program that is more of a build-on program, it’s a bit shorter than our other programs. And, I mean, they do some similar things, like our procedural artists, but maybe not as focused on the procedural part and Houdini, which is the program that our procedural artists use a lot.

[00:08:35] But a technical artist, they can also do things like VFX in games, and special effects, and shaders, and things, but so it really is, um like, the love child of an artist and a programmer, finding those technical solutions to art.

A Day in the Life of a Student at The Game Assembly

[00:08:54] Otto: Now that you know a little bit about, what you can learn at, this school, so, could you just give us sort of a rundown of, what does, like, the average day look like for a student and what is sort of the the arc from applying to all the way to after you graduate, what happens then?

[00:09:16] Ida Fontaine: Okay, so if we start with the small thing. Like what is a regular day at The Game Assembly? We are very strict. We’re on location every day, Monday to Friday, nine to six, 40 hours a week. It’s like a full time job and it’s only, it’s a vocational school. So they, there’s very little theory. It’s more learning your trade, being as good as possible within the two years that you’re here before you go out on your internship.

[00:09:50] So a regular day always starts with a stand up at 9:15, because we teach our students the agile methodology and working with sprints. So stand up 9, 9 to 9:15 every morning.

[00:10:08] Rune: Sorry, what is this? I am as uneducated as a human being can get. What is a stand up? I was thinking you have like a stand up comedian coming to class, but, or, and then I thought you’re standing next to the bench like we did when we were kids and wait for the teacher to say sit down and now we keep on talking and I’m like, no, no, it’s none of those two.

[00:10:24] What is a stand up?

What Is Agile?

[00:10:26] Ida Fontaine: Okay, so a stand up is a short meeting that is part of, Agile methodology if you work with sprints. So, to wrap it back even further, working with sprints is that you sort of, when you develop a game, instead of doing like, okay, we’re going to make this game and then you work on it all the way until the finish line, and then you don’t revise maybe as much.

[00:10:56] I mean, I hope you do anyway, but with the sprint methodology, it means that you work in two week increments. And always, check up, like, where are we now after two weeks, what is the goal for the next two weeks, what do we have to cut, do we need to add something, what is not working, what’s working, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you sort of can work closer to the client and to sort of, I mean, in theory, get a better end product. Sorry, this is a very TLDR with sprint methodology, but the stand up is the thing you do every day. So you start every day with literally standing up in a circle and you discuss the three, different questions that is, what did I do yesterday? What am I doing today? And is there anything hindering me from doing what I want to do today?

[00:11:54] Rune: So I’m standing there in a circle with my classmates, and we take turns answering those three questions, and that the idea is, also to let my classmates know where I’m at. So for example, if an artist relies on me for programming his dragon to do whatever, he get like a little bit of insight where I’m at. Is that the point of it, or, like, why would I, okay.

[00:12:16] Ida Fontaine: So the point is also like cross-disciplinary, for everyone to more know what they’re doing, and to sort of just, it’s a way to help communicating, because it could also raise questions like Oh, I’ve been stuck with this tool that I’m trying to implement for several days. I can’t make it work.

[00:12:36] And then others will know and they can help. Or like, maybe we need to have a meeting about this, so that you’re not sitting three more days with this. Maybe we can find a solution. Maybe we scrap it. Maybe we don’t need the tool after all. So that is the idea of it. And it’s very, very common in the game industry to have standups in the morning, which is why we do it here.

[00:13:02] Cause the way we work here tries to mimic the game industry as much as possible. And that is also feedback we always get when we’re out doing our internship halftime assessments, the students are like, it’s just like at school, but not as fast-paced.

[00:13:24] Rune: Cool. I really like that. Like, like I mentioned, I, I went to a plumber high school and the first thing our teacher said is plumbers don’t get homework. So you ain’t going to get homework for the next three years. And then we didn’t have homework. So, and that was awesome for someone like me who just, I’m not into studying but that reminds me of that, like it was just the whole idea with the plumber school was just to do what you do when you’re a plumber so we just in the workshop most of the time welding and “bocking” (bending) pipes.

What the Industry Think of The Game Assembly Method

[00:13:55] Ida Fontaine: So I mean, yeah, it is great because it’s also, it means it’s a less of a cultural shock for the students when they get out on the internships, but it’s also, it ensures that we

[00:14:09] deliver a lot of very, very well-equipped junior developers to the industry. The feedback we get from our supervisors and the people that then hire all of our students, the feedback we get again and again, and again, is that they’re so well prepared.

[00:14:25] They’re better than most juniors, like as going out on their internships. Like they’re still theoretically in school. The feedback we get is that they’re better than a lot of juniors, and they haven’t even finished. So it’s very nice to hear that.

[00:14:43] But we’ve reached the first 15 minutes of the days in the every day of the school.

A Day in the Life… Continued

[00:14:50] Ida Fontaine: So after that, they will work on their individual courses for about half the day, including having lunch, of course, and then towards the end of the day, they will work on their game projects, which is half of the education, 50% of their time is spent in game projects at The Game Assembly.

[00:15:15] Otto: Cool, and just a quick follow-up question. So, could you go a little bit more into the individual courses? What are those? How does, how do those work? And the game projects, is that like one giant project through like the two years? Or is it small, like one month games? Or how does that work?

[00:15:38] Ida Fontaine: So, we try to teach our students a little bit of everything, the last semester before going out on their internship, they can sort of specialize themselves a bit. That’s mainly for the programmers, the…

[00:15:55] Sorry?

[00:15:56] Rune: What, what is a semester? Is that like, a season? Like six months? Okay.

[00:16:02] Ida Fontaine: No, so a school, a school, a school semester, so you have, the spring semester and the fall semester, so, “termin” in Swedish.

[00:16:13] Rune: Alright. So there’s four semesters per… For a two year education, that’s four semesters, and the last one is… Okay, cool. Sorry.

[00:16:21] Ida Fontaine: And, and that’s mainly for the programmers that they start specialized that late. Actually our, artists, for example, they start having smaller courses where they get more free reign into what they want to do. So they can start specialize a bit earlier. But the general concept with our individual courses is that it will teach you a little bit about everything. So an artist will learn, 2D, 3D, sculpting, work a little bit with VFX, work a little bit with animation, just learning a little bit of everything. Our programmers as well, they have different courses in, various things, artificial intelligence programming, network programming, graphics programming, like they learn a little bit about everything basically. And then you can specialize towards the end when you, make your portfolio, which you use in order to find yourself on internship.

[00:17:24] So that’s a little bit about the individual courses and then we have the game projects and there we do 8 game projects in total throughout the course of the program here at school, the two years. And they vary a bit in, size. so I think the shortest one is a month. It’s teeny-tiny. And the longest one, I think it must be the last one they make, because then they do it full time, so they don’t have any individual courses towards the end, then they just sit 40 hours a week creating a game.

[00:18:05] But they vary a bit in size, and we also give them different genres that they’re making. So they’re not always making the same kind of game. They make a mobile game, they make a platformer, they make a first person game, they make a Diablo-esque game, so they do a little bit, they try to do a little bit of everything.

[00:18:30] Rune: But these, game projects, like, is it the whole class working on one, or is it smaller groups and they work on, or can you even, can I work on my own?

[00:18:41] Ida Fontaine: They are smaller groups, you can’t do it on your own, because they’re also, like, part of the course, criteria are things that means that you need to learn how to work cross-disciplinary, you need to learn how to work with others and adapt your work based on the needs of the group.

[00:19:01] So there are about 10 to 15 per group and in the first year, they, we swapped the groups every project. So they get to work with different people and get to know each other. And then the second year, they are put in the same groups for the full year.

[00:19:25] Rune: Okay.

[00:19:26] Otto: Right. Very, I mean, it’s, first of all, I’d just like to say, it feels like a very serious education that there’s a lot of stuff that feels, like, really cool that you, for example, like, towards the end, working 40 hours a week, on a game project feels really… Yeah, you know, it must be that you really get into what it’s like in the real world world, so to speak. So, yeah, very…

[00:19:52] Ida Fontaine: I mean, we have to adapt a little bit because we’re not a game studio. We are a school. So of course there are adaptions.

[00:20:00] We can’t mimic exactly everything, but we try as much as possible to prepare them for the industry they’re going into afterwards.

[00:20:12] Otto: Yeah. Cool, and, you know, I could really tell, it’s, a bit different from, different school that we’ve talked to in, in, another episode that, here it feels a lot like, as you say, really trying to mimicking the, the work in a studio and really, almost like a job, except for, like, it’s a sort of an apprentice job almost, I would say.

[00:20:41] Ida Fontaine: And we have, we have, very, very high expectations on our students. And it’s a very hard program. You won’t make it unless you actually spend the time needed.

[00:20:55] Like you just won’t, it’s a hard program and we expect a lot of our students.

[00:21:02] But if you, if you get your diploma in the end, you’re going to be very well equipped for the industry.

[00:21:11] Rune: Well, that’s good. I mean, that it sort of adds some sort of prestige to it, like a Oxford, but for gaming. Eventually, I mean, if this school keeps growing, maybe it might be that kind of status when you have made it through 2

[00:21:26] 3 years of hell in that school.

[00:21:28] Ida Fontaine: I usually call us, I usually call us the military school of game development education, we have students or we have people that want to apply to the school that come up to me at like a high school jobs fair or whatever it is. And they’re like, Oh, so like, can you work from home? Do you have like, we’re like, no, like go to another school. I don’t know what to tell you. Like, or like go, be on location here for two years and then find an internship where you can work remotely. Like that’s perfectly fine, but the concept we have here is very strict and very hardcore.

[00:22:16] Otto: Cool. Yeah, I love how you’re un-apologetic about it. And I think it really, feels like a good strategy, you know, to I mean, it’s better, as you say, if it’s really the case that they say that, you know, real world is like The Game Assembly, except not as strict, you then that’s, you know, you can’t be better prepared for work in real life than that, I think, so…

[00:22:41] Ida Fontaine: No, they’re very well prepared and the internships are usually vacation for them, because that’s also the thing, we’re a vocational school, our programs can’t be longer than a certain amount of time. So it is very condensed and very intense, but also, we don’t want to take things away from it. We don’t want to lower the level of what we teach our students. So it is hard. I’m not going to lie.

[00:23:13] Otto: Yeah.

[00:23:14] Rune: I mean, I think it sounds awesome, because it’s, it really is, if you, if it is as tough as you say, or if the students reckon it is, you know, that’s just better when you start working. Like you said, for some students it feels easier to go to work than to school. And that just, you’re so equipped for that kind of stuff. I told my wife, like, when moving back to Sweden, and she’s worried about how do people work in Sweden and, stuff. I’m like, well, you’re Japanese, like working in Sweden is like 10 times easier than here.

[00:23:47] It’s gonna be so easy for you to, to, to get used to it. And I mean, you’re gonna crush it, don’t worry about it. And it sounds kinda like for you.

[00:23:54] Ida Fontaine: …people actually don’t expect of you to work 10 hours overtime every week.

[00:23:59] Rune: No, exactly. Yeah, so it sounds, it sounds really cool. I like what I’m hearing.

The Application and Admission Process at The Game Assembly

[00:24:08] Otto: Yeah, so I’m thinking then, for our listeners, so you’ve listened to this and you feel like this is really the school for me. I really think I would fit in, in this school. So then how do you get into the school? Is there some, like process for, that you have to have this amount of experience or do you have to have a portfolio or can you come straight out of high school or another industry and just learn all the stuff at your school, or how does that work?

[00:24:36] Ida Fontaine: So all of the programs in Stockholm, they’re, like base programs. So you can come straight out of high school, but you need a high school diploma to be able to be, yeah, to be eligible to apply. So you need a high school diploma. And then, some programs in Sweden, for example, don’t, automatically have English 6. So that is something you need to have as well. And for programming, you need to have math 3. And then for our procedural artist program, you need math 2. And these are like a lot of Swedish courses that will make a lot of sense to you if you’re Swedish. But if you’re not like, yeah, there are good services to translate your high school diploma, but main thing is that our school and the courses we give are in Swedish. So you need to have a good understanding of Swedish and you need to be able to prove that in some way.

[00:25:44] You know, so we do have students from the Nordics. That’s generally not a problem. Like we have the occasional Norwegian, Danish, I was gonna say Faroe Islands students, but that’s a lie.

[00:25:56] We’ve never had a students for the Faroe Islands. Please apply. That would be super cool. But we also do have students that are from outside of Scandinavia, but have maybe lived in Sweden for a long time and have a good understanding of Swedish, or things like that. But yeah, so you do apply through a website that’s called yh-antagning.se and for all of our programs, except for programming, you need to apply with a portfolio as well, where you showcase 5, or at most 5 different pieces that showcase who you are as an artist and that is used in the selection criteria. And then after the portfolio, then, you will be called to an interview if you score one of the highest, and after the interview, we know who gets it or not.

[00:27:01] And, a question I always get is, when are the interviews? And they’re always the same week as midsummer.

[00:27:09] The only program that doesn’t have portfolios are the programmers and then they do an online test beforehand, but they also do another test when they get here for an interview, so we can make sure it was them who did the test online.

[00:27:27] Otto: Ah, okay. Clever.

[00:27:29] Ida Fontaine: Yes.

[00:27:30] Otto: Cool. Very nice. Yeah. Interesting. So I was just gonna ask, about that you said earlier, about international students. So you make the education mainly in Swedish. So that’s the, the target audience, so to speak?

[00:27:46] Yeah, and, yeah, interesting. So how, how many applicants do you get per year if there is an average or anything like that versus how many spots?

[00:27:58] Ida Fontaine: It’s so hard to say, it changes every year, and I think this year it’s gonna be more than ever. I mean, it gets more and more every year, but it’s also, the curve is not very straight upwards, but it really depends on like, the pandemic more people studied, the recession more people will study, things like that, but, I mean, we get hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of applications. And then the game artists program is for sure the most popular.

[00:28:30] I think we opened the applications a little more than a week ago, and I think we could already fill a class. Like, it’s… And then programming, we, those classes are very, very big because we’re quite a program-heavy school, or programming-heavy school.

[00:28:53] So then it’s like, it’s not as many applying and we have a bigger class to fill, so it’s a little less competitive, but I mean, we do have hundreds and hundreds of students applying every year, so obviously not everyone get in.

[00:29:10] Otto: Yeah, right.

[00:29:12] Rune: Just, asking for a friend, so in my case I’m, I am, I have none of what you just said that I need. This procedural artist program, you said that you need to have English something and also another thing to get in, but someone like me who has nothing, I only have like the basics of everything, but I do have released and published four games, does that hold anything in terms of like applying, like can I sort of hold get in there anyway without having all these things that I actually need?

[00:29:50] Ida Fontaine: Yes, so that’s a great question because, yes you can. So we can always bring people on if we feel that they have what it takes to be able to graduate towards the end. And the thing, especially in your case, where you have a lot of like real life competence. You have a lot of experience from life. You would have to click that, when you apply, which is called “Reell kompetens” (real competence) in Swedish. And then you showcase that in your cover letter or person-, like in your portfolio, like you mentioned that like, hey, I know I don’t have English 6, but I’ve, I’ve released 4 games. I think I would be fine and then we can say that, yeah, we agree. I think you will be perfectly fine. And you’re, you also have one of the best portfolios because the portfolio will still be scored.

[00:30:57] So, yeah, no, but that’s a very good question and that it’s very doable.

Exploring the Reasons for Joining the School

[00:31:04] Rune: Do you have a lot of those students who have done games and released before they apply? And if so, why would they go to school if they’re already in the industry? Or is this just a better way of getting into a bigger company? Like, in my case, I’m just grinding away as an indie developer. But I honestly would love to work for a bigger company, mainly because I want to be a part of a team. It’s quite boring to sit in this corner all day long by myself, so I can imagine for me, why I would like to get into a school like this, and then that would be like a stepping stone into a company, or is there any other reasons for people to do that?

[00:31:41] Ida Fontaine: We do not have a lot of, we do not have a lot of students who have worked in the industry previously that sort of come to us to start over from the beginning. It does happen though on the technical artist program because that is sort of an add-on program. So there we have people that have worked as artists previously, but want to be, become more technical and learn all of those programs that you use as a technical artist.

[00:32:12] Though, what we do see quite often are students that have gone to another game development education of some sort, and they go to us as well. I sometimes feel like we’re seen as a bit of a game industry job, what’s it called? job agency.

[00:32:42] Rune: Mm mm. I mean, it kind of sounds like it, your track record and the prestige and all that stuff, it’s almost like, it almost sounds like that’s where you want to go if you wanna get into the industry.

[00:32:54] Ida Fontaine: Yeah, and I mean that also shows how competitive it sometimes is to get in, because we have students that have already 3 years of game development education that get in and do sort of 2.5 more years here and then they start working in the industry. So, yeah, I think especially the more theoretical university programs, we see some coming from there. It seems a bit harder to find a job in the industry afterwards in some cases. I do feel that the vocational schools have a bit of an edge there because we are actually, in part run by an advisory board with people from the industry that sort of shape the education. So um yeah, it’s, a bit different.

[00:33:54] Otto: Yeah, and another thing related to applying to the school, so imagine that you want to start this education, but you don’t know if it costs or how does that work, the financial bit is there some sort of like, student loan you can take for it, or…?

[00:34:13] Ida Fontaine: Yes, you can get a full, full student, Swedish, full Swedish student loan. So it doesn’t cost anything, so you get, I mean, it’s not much, but you get full student loan if you go here. And you’re applicable, for a student loan to begin with.

[00:34:32] Otto: Yeah. Cool, very nice.

Future Plans and the Vision for the Game Assembly

[00:34:35] Otto: Yeah, and, sort of, do you have any plans on, expansion, or what does the, sort of, future look for, look like for the school? Is there something, like, if you could dream a little bit, like, you know, you had unlimited resources and you can build the school to whatever you want to.

[00:34:56] Do you have any goals or, or dreams or anything about that?

[00:35:02] Ida Fontaine: No, we, we like, this is very boring answer, but we feel we have a good thing going. We prefer to just perfect the thing we already have going and make it as good as possible and make it as good of an experience for the students and for later on, the industry when they get the students from us as possible.

[00:35:28] So we wanna just perfect what we already have. We are not really looking to expand a lot or like add on a lot of different programs. Like I’m not saying it won’t happen. Maybe we will add new programs. We, I mean, we did with Procedural Artist, last year, but, generally we just want to get a good thing going and perfect what we have.

[00:35:59] Otto: Yeah, exactly. I would say it’s a great answer, I mean, it’s focusing on quality primarily and then, you know, quantity will happen perhaps. So I, I think that’s a good approach.

[00:36:10] Ida Fontaine: And we do have like our programs change a lot, all the time because we do adapt to the industry and we try to always improve. So even like, we’ve had, for example, game programmer, we’ve had that since 2008 in Malmö, but the pro-, what the program looked like in 2008 is very far away from what it looks like now, but the main concept of mimicking the industry and having half the education being game development, working in game projects, we feel that’s a concept that works and we just want to continue building on it.

[00:36:54] Rune: But, how, when I went to the plumber high school, we went from copper pipes to plastic pipes. So we had to learn how to deal with that. So I’m, now my question, how do you, you said you mimic the industry. What does that like a more concrete example? Is it like you teach your student new game engines or is it like games are becoming more like a service nowadays, so we are going to, focus on make a game as a service or how exactly…? Can you give like an example on how, how you mimic the industry?

[00:37:24] Ida Fontaine: I mean, so for example, the procedural artist program was sort of a want, it was an ask from the industry that they see all of this new tech coming and the need for this kind of competence, including this program Houdini.

[00:37:43] So then we started doing, or creating that program. Then very recently, our game artist program has gone from Maya to Blender, because we see that it’s becoming more and more common in the industry, so we have changed and, it’s interesting that you mentioned engines. Cause I mean, in 2008, Unity wasn’t a thing. but our students work in Unity for the first two game projects and then, this is sort of what makes us a bit special because our students then start working in our in-house engine for the last part of the first year. And in the second year, they create and work in their own engines.

[00:38:37] Rune: Wow.

[00:38:38] Ida Fontaine: …which is a bit different from a lot of other schools that mainly focus on Unity And Unreal.

The Game Assembly’s In-House Game Engine

[00:38:47] Rune: The, your own in-house engine, like can the students improve upon it and is there like a, a long term goal to make that like the next Unreal engine by students?

[00:38:58] Ida Fontaine: I mean, we, we, we use it as an educational tool and it’s constantly improved upon. We have educators here that have 15 years of experience working with Frostbite, which is the engine of DICE, for example. So we work a lot with improving it, but the students can also implement things. I mean, they have a course about creating tools, so they create tools and implement them in the engine, and things like that, or, I mean, let me tell you, I’m not a game developer, but I mean, they do a lot of cool things. For example, like if the artists say, oh, but I, I need to get this into the engine, then the programmers have to sit and be like, okay, but how do we make that work? Like right now, there’s no way to put these files into the engine. How do we solve that? So things like that.

Does the Game Assembly Create Artistic Freedom or Conformity?

[00:40:06] Rune: This sounds super cool. I do have one question that it’s more, a little bit, a little bit more philosophical maybe, I mentioned before that I sort of see myself with a, I’m a little bit of an artist, but I’m also like a programming, so, problem solving kind of guy and one thing I wanted to ask and it might come across harsh but I’ve always been somewhat skeptical to education, especially in the sort of opinion/creative space and like for example normal education like my son for example in Japan go to Japanese kindergarten and so on.

[00:40:43] I can see the importance in that because they sort of teach kids to, they shape them to become somewhat alike, which is, I think is a good base for adulthood to function in a society. I know in Western culture, we are sort of leaning away from that a little bit and more into individuality or whatever it’s called.

[00:41:03] But when it comes to creativity, I’m thinking like, I’m a little bit more skeptical because I, I fear that the education, like if you’re being educated by say one teacher is educating 20 students, isn’t he sort of influencing the way they think and the way they sort of conceptualized art and so on, and then my, I guess my only argument I have for why I fear this is that, I think that if you watch a Hollywood movie, if you watch one, you’ve basically seen them all, and I don’t know if this is true or not, but I feel like they’re all written by the same people from the same school, going through the same program, and when I wrote a movie when I was younger, I lived in the States and worked as an au pair, I sent it into some, some sort of competition thingy.

[00:41:51] And they told me, they gave me feedback and they said that they’re, they talked about a red thread that is supposed to be through a movie. So it’s a build up and a climax moment and then down and something like that. And I was shocked. I was like, why would I follow some sort of rules on how to make a film?

[00:42:07] Then it’s just gonna be like everything else. And now in the gaming industry, I almost feel like a lot of these AAA blockbuster games feel so same-y, from a story perspective in particular and Otto and I, we talked about this many times about unreal Engine. If you Google, for example, or YouTube, Unreal Engine, top 10 games coming out.

[00:42:27] I mean, they all look the same. Because here you have an engine that creates the same art. And it’s just different people putting the trees in different… So it’s, it’s just all looks the same. And on top of that, you have the storytelling that I’m, I’m, I, maybe I’m just imagining it, but I feel like it’s become somewhat same-y.

[00:42:44] So then my go-to answer is, well, maybe it has to do with education then, because education is sort of making people same-y. The same way my son is very similar to, especially here in Japan, you know, they wear uniforms. They all look the same from a distance. But you really have to get up closer to see the difference between these kids and their personalities and so on.

[00:43:04] But I, I don’t know, am I onto something here? I do, you mentioned before that especially with the creative part in this program, they start to specializing and I did like the sound of that, because then it sort of sounds like they’re branching off to be their own artist or their own you know, creative person.

[00:43:22] Ida Fontaine: And, and I think it’s such a good question, and I think you have a lot of very valid points. Because, I mean, we do have full time employed educators here. We don’t have consultants coming in, doing one course, and then they fuck off, and then there’s a new one coming in. We have the same educator all the time, which doesn’t stop us from having like a gazillion guest lectures every semester. we’re reaching a point where second year students are like, we need to focus on our work. Like we have so many guests. But like for sure we do have the same educators and they will shape them in a way in how to approach their craft.

[00:44:10] But at the same time, we do have the courses where they’re given the artistic freedom to specialize in what they want to do the most, or just push themselves to try a lot of different things.

[00:44:29] And I would say based on what the portfolios look like, when they start applying for internships, they are so different from each other.

[00:44:38] So I feel, in one way, yes, we sort of shape them into a mold, but maybe that’s more regarding how to approach the craft, and, maybe soft skills, because that’s very important to us, they work 50% in groups, you can’t be a dick, no, but like, you have to learn how to work with others, but the end product, like the portfolios, they look so different that I feel we at least give them the chance to find out who they are themselves as artists.

[00:45:17] Rune: Hmm. Yeah. Fair enough. I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s, I guess it’s my example with the, well, our own kids, how they’re being shaped to become this multi, super organism, but then eventually they will spread out and do their own thing. So I guess…

[00:45:34] Ida Fontaine: Yeah. And I mean, and also like even our programmers, but we can see a bit that it goes in waves too, especially if the industry say, Oh, we really want tool programmers, then we will see more students focusing on tools programming. And for example, I think, we’re seeing maybe a shift where more artists try to look into environmental art right now, because we have had people from the industry coming in saying, Oh, you know what? We would really like some environment, environment artists. Yay. So there are definitely also waves of what is the most popular, right now, but that changes too.

[00:46:30] Rune: This environmental art, this is just a thought I had now when you mention it, this procedural artist and environmental art. I think that’s a good match because my work, what I don’t like with procedurally generated stuff, like I said, I think it’s cheating and also it makes everything looks quite same-y.

[00:46:46] But I can imagine that, imagine you have like an environmental artist and a procedural artist and then we make the skyscraper and then with just through a menu on the side you can basically tell who lives here. This, in this house, there’s a middle aged man who likes to drink beer and watch football lives and then this, this engine then creates that atmosphere in that, his apartment while on across the hall from him, there’s a totally different person lives there and you could so that sounds cool. But I mean, I imagine that’s something that’s gonna happen in the future that we’re just type in things on the side and that, but then you need environmental artists who have that sort of sense of how does a house look like, where there is a single middleman bear alcoholic guy living or whatever it may be. So that that sounds…

[00:47:37] Ida Fontaine: Same thing with AI. Like AI will, it might replace the mediocre game developers, but it will never replace the really good ones.

Episode Outro

[00:47:52] Otto: Interesting, yeah, very nice. And, you know, it feels like we could talk about all these things for another 3 hours probably, but we are approaching one hour, so before we end the episode, first, Rune, do you have anything else you want to ask or anything you wanna bring up?

[00:48:11] Rune: No, I’m, I’m, I’m happy with that. That was, awesome. I mean, I have a million more questions, but…

[00:48:19] Otto: Yeah, same, same.

[00:48:20] Rune: I did, let me see. Jack of all trades… I do have one more. Ah, well, ah, I’m fine. That’s, it’s good.

[00:48:29] Otto: Let’s save it for the next one. So, yeah, thank you so much. I think also, like, just hearing that you have an in-house engine, I think we could probably do an entire episode on that.

[00:48:42] Ida Fontaine: I, I can, I can deliver Björn to let him evangelize about, our in-house engine and discuss, yeah, he’s also incredibly passionate about, how colors are shown on screens and such.

[00:48:59] Rune: Oh wow.

[00:49:00] Ida Fontaine: Yeah, he’s a big nerd in the best kind of way.

[00:49:03] Otto: Perfect, yeah, we would love to have him on the show. Absolutely. yeah, but I think that’s, that’s gonna be it for our episode, but I think before we let you go, so please, plug everything you want and give us your best elevator pitch for why people should choose The Game Assembly.

[00:49:24] Ida Fontaine: Okay, so I don’t know, I think If this sounds intriguing to you, if you accept our concept that it is, like I said, the military school of game development, you’re expected to be here 40 hours a week, you’re expected to put down a lot of work, it will make you into an excellent game developer. And I mean, I’ve also been like, it’s very hard, like, you have to be ready for it.

[00:49:52] But we do something right, because the amount of alumni that everywhere want to come back and tell them about their, tell the others, the students now about their time at The Game Assembly, and want to share all the tips and tricks, like, people like going here, and they have a good experience, and they want to come back. So we have a good thing going, we believe in our concept, and we might seem a bit old school, and it isn’t for everyone, I fully understand that, but, I mean, apply if it sounds interesting to you, I think the application period ends 5th of May, and we do have actually, an open house, on location in Stockholm, and on location in Malmö, on the 4th and 5th Of March, if I’m not mistaken, but that’s on the website, so you can just check.

[00:50:56] Otto: Very nice and we’ll make sure to link that. Thank you again so much for being our wonderful guest. And, we, we look forward to doing another episode about this school. There’s a lot to cover, I think. Yeah and, thank you Rune for being my amazing co-host as always and, thank you everyone for listening and watching.

[00:51:20] So, again, send in a voicemail if you have anything to say to us, or a comment. And, what else? All of the links are in the description. And, please, listen next week as well. Have a good one.

[00:51:33] Ida Fontaine: Thank you. Bye!

[00:51:35] Otto: Bye!

Podcast
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Indie Game Development

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Otto Wretling

Written by Otto Wretling

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Writing about my podcast, game development, technology, language learning, and whatever else comes to my mind!

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