Design academy opens for dev hopefuls aged 12-18

Students as young as 12 are invited to join a new design academy in the North East that teaches script writing, animation and programming.

The course has been developed by a professional UK developer, and is structured so that pupils will work towards building, and even publishing, their first game for Apple’s App Store.

Mark Sample, who works as a producer at Ubisoft Reflections, is one of the academy’s teaching staff. He has previously lectured on game design and production at university level.

“All aspects of development will be covered ranging from, art, animation, design, audio, coding and project management,” Sample told Develop.

“The Academy is held in a new, state of the art tech facility that was built last summer. The students will have access to 24 Macs with a variety of software installed, a recording studio, a TV studio, a 100-seat theatre/cinema and a variety of brainstorming rooms.

The academy is held in the North East, at Prudhoe Community High School’s Fuse Media Centre.

“At the end of the course I will help the best projects get published on the App Store,” Sample added.

“In the long run this will promote the students and get them an accelerated future in the games industry.”

This week, the Department for Education announced it is to scrap ICT lessons in favour of computer science.