Get Immersed in Game Development at Champlain’s Summer Game Academy

This summer, 59 high school students will replace the usual college-aged crowd on the Champlain College hilltop campus. They will be living in the residence halls, taking classes with Champlain professors, and exploring all that 足彩胜负14场, Vermont has to offer. Their mission? To develop a playable game in two weeks. This is the Game Academy.

This summer program allows high school students to explore their passion for games in Champlain’s state-of-the-art Game Studio. Here, they can learn more about the four undergraduate Game Studio majors: Game Design, Game Art, Game Programming, and Game Production Management. Students often come in with a basic knowledge in at least one of these areas, but are encouraged to delve into other fields to learn more about game production, design, and coding.

Students work in teams to develop their games from the ground up, and although each person has their own role, everyone gets the chance to experience their teammates’ work as well.

“Everybody’s job is hard in different ways, so it’s really interesting to be in different positions and to see that, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize how challenging this actually was,’” says Natalie. These skills are an essential part of the teamwork that makes up the Game Academy and the larger Game Studio at Champlain.

“The Academy totally mirrors what goes on at Champlain. Everything they do in the Academy is what a student would experience as part of the undergraduate program,” says Lawson, who also teaches Game Programming during the year at Champlain College.

The Academy totally mirrors what goes on at Champlain. Everything they do in the Academy is what a student would experience as part of the undergraduate program.

Dean Lawson, Game Programming Director

Elaine Dorer, mother of Game Academy student Harry Dorer, was impressed by how students and faculty work together. “It’s more collaborative and less hierarchical than high school,” she said. “It shows students how exciting college can be.”

Another rising high school senior attending the Game Academy, Matt Slockbower from Mahwah, NJ, explains his group’s process in coming up with their concept. “We wanted to make a 2-D platformer game, so we picked a song on which to base our game called Snowball in Hell by They Might Be Giants. And that’s what we ended up naming it, because it was literally a snowball in hell. You had to escape or it would melt!”

Champlain College is a top contender on Natalie and Matt’s college application lists, and the Game Academy is an invaluable experience for when they begin their first year.

Game Art major Cameron Howell, ’21, is a Teaching Assistant at the Game Academy this summer after having attended it himself in high school. “It’s a ginormous step up when you actually get to use Maya? [a 3-D animation software] at the Game Academy because most people coming into college have never touched anything like it. Being able to use Maya? kickstarted my learning. As soon as I left the Game Academy, I downloaded it, started using it, and then came to Champlain knowing the base features already.”

If you’re here and you enjoy it, it’s almost hands-down you’re going to want to come here and be a Game major.

Now that Cameron has been on both sides of the Game Academy, as a student and as a TA, he is confident that it was the right choice for him. “If you’re here and you enjoy it, it’s almost hands-down you’re going to want to come here and be a Game major.”