Rubika Supinfogame India - Game Design Trainer

Presentation

In early January 2014, after a former colleague contacted me to share my professional experience, I became a Game Design teacher at Supinfogame Rubika at the DSK International Campus in Pune, India. There, I taught and accompanied students in game design, level design and video game culture up to the Master level.

The video game industry in India is young and emerging with a strong growth outlook, but it is not well trained and faces the conservatism of society. That’s why I found it interesting to be part of its foundation and to guide young Indians who wanted to follow a different path than IT or medicine. To help them and their parents to discover that video games can become a career opportunity.

We had to work on a new curriculum with a fresh perspective on the needs of the industry, both globally and locally.

In class, I approached the above with many creative exercises containing strong constraints and defined themes. I also regularly monitored projects. I also helped them to structure and to communicate their ideas, and above all I exposed them to a wide range of games and pop cultures often overshadowed by mainstream productions in their media landscape.

I often objected to their idealized image of the video game developer and confronted their views as players with that of their future role as Game Designer.

At the same time, I was also a mentor and, in some cases, a producer during the follow-up of the year-end projects. Many of these student projects have won international awards and have been released in online shops such as Itch.io and Steam.

Professionally, it was a rewarding experience in many ways:

• International experience of living and working abroad.
• Meet many industry players as well as those from other sectors such as animation, industrial design and product design.
• Share different approaches to work, thanks to the great diversity of careers and experiences within the academic team.
• A glimpse into a different perspective on the industry, due to the preparation of the next generation of game developers outside the hustle and bustle of video game production.

Here is a selection of games made by the students and that I've helped to build.