Not only have students been eager to sign up to this year’s festival but there has also been high interest from industry professionals to mentor and support the students. University teams from across Europe will travel to Cambridge for the four day festival from 24 to 27 June 2016, which is hosted by Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
The festival gives games creators exclusive access to world-leading technology and games companies, including Guerrilla Cambridge, PlayStation First, ARM, Unity and Jagex. The students are able to showcase their skills, enhance their portfolios, and have the chance to be in the running for top industry jobs.
Kate Drewitt, Innovation and Enterprise Lead at Anglia Ruskin University, said: “We are delighted to be hosting Brains Eden for the eighth year in our new purpose built facility Compass House. Cambridge is one of the UK’s 12 games clusters so it is fitting that it should be home to such an amazing event.”
Dan Moody, a Southampton Solent student (pictured), has participated for the past two years and will be at Brains Eden again this year. In his first year, Moody won an eight-week internship with ARM. He explained: “I thought it was really interesting that not only were games companies present at the festival, but technology and digital giants were too. It’s awesome that Brains Eden offers the opportunity to come face to face with industry, and some of the games legends that you aspire to be like one day.”
As a direct result of the festival, over 30 students have received internships and eight have secured full time roles at major industry players. Mark Green, Senior Producer, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Guerrilla Games said: “Getting to see the best new talent is one of the key recruitment challenges in our industry. That’s why events like Brains Eden are so important. They give us the chance to meet some of the very, very best.”
Brains Eden is based around a 48-hour games jam, which kicks off on the opening Friday at 5pm when the surprise theme is revealed to participating teams: previous themes have included ‘unequal’ and ‘displacement’. The jam provides students with the opportunity to showcase their creative flair, games development skills and teamwork.
A team of students from NHTV University in the Netherlands and Norwich University of the Arts that took part as a joint team, Silent Squid, in last year’s festival, and have released Gust – the game created and developed at Brains Eden, which is now available on Android. Silent Squid team member Alex Clarke commented: “Brains Eden is such a fantastic opportunity for games students across the world. I didn’t expect to be surrounded by so many people from the games industry who are happy to answer any questions we have about the games being created or the broader games sector.
“We only made a couple of tweaks to Gust after Brains Eden before launching it on Android. Since then it has received a fantastic response from people playing the game. This would not have been possible without the festival and the mentors involved.”
If you’d like to find out more about how to get involved with Brains Eden 2016, contact the event organiser, Kathryn Ford: [email protected] or visit www.brainseden.net.
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