What is it?

TAMK has re-organised its courses for students wanting to become games artists or games programmers to enable both groups of students to work together. It makes sense too to have common taught courses, for example, in the case of games business and production so that both groups have a common understanding of the way the industry works.

By making it possible for games artists and games programmers to work together from an early stage, the individual portfolios of all students will be stronger. The specialist teaching staff across different arts and design disciplines, and across the technical programming subjects from both departments in the School will deliver the courses. Guest talks from people in the industry will be open to all, and importantly made known to all students.

Routes into the TAMK Games Academy

From Business Information Systems student’s side, all first year students take part in a project, which produces a game for an external client. These are all taken to a standard that allows them to be published, and they are presented at a major event in Tampere Talo that takes place in May of this year.

Starting in January 2016, students from the Media and Arts Design and Development Minor and the Animation Minor will join these project groups. Students with a strong background in visual design and sound design are eligible to join these Minors.

The routes into the Games Academy are:

• Completion of TIKO first year studies

• Being a student in the Media and Arts unit (more information on how to apply here)

• Other previous games art or games programming experience considered appropriate

What does it include?

The TAMK teaching year is split into 4 teaching periods (TP1 to TP4). TP1 and TP2 run from September to December, and TP 3 and TP4 run from January to May. All games academy courses are 5 credits each. There is also a 3 credit Introduction to Modelling course. In TP 1 and 2, the emphasis is on 2D games and in TP 3 and 4, it’s 3D games. The current choice of games development environment is Unity. This choice is kept under review.