At University of East London’s Creative Industries Festival, our Digital Curriculum lead Alan had the privilege of meeting with Jenna Bidwell (aka littlemisshatter), where they instantly connected through their shared love of game design and development. Following this, Jenna agreed to kindly come and inspire our year 12s with an interactive masterclass on game design. As a recent graduate in computer game development with a first class honours, Jenna was the perfect person to both relate to and inspire our learners. During this session, learners explored the pillars of games design and getting ready for Unreal engine. 

Jenna was so impressed by our learners’ enthusiasm that, following her fantastic masterclass, she began to mentor our learners through their unit 4 extended project which requires learners to develop an interactive media product for a given brief.  

Learners were given the following scenario: 
You work as a games developer for Royal Docks Digital and have been working on developing a new game. A motion picture visual effects and computer animation digital studio has asked for a new interactive multimedia product to be developed that can be played on a PC and will complement their range of characters and storylines. The product will be targeted at a wide range of users but especially at reaching new audience members of the film/series, existing fans of the films/series and gamers/game developers who are interested in knowing more about the game development.  
 
Thanks to Jenna’s expertise and support, learners have upskilled their game development processes by working with her on level design concepts for their games, games design documentation and project management plans. 

Year 12 learner Nubia shares, “Jenna really helped with unreal engine and showed us how to use the tools in an effective way to get the most out of them. Her expertise has really inspired me to come up with some great ideas for my own game!”   

“Having Jenna join us on this game development journey is so valuable! She helps to align learners to a clear goal to work towards by offering a professional perspective and communicating clear industry requirements. Thanks to Jenna’s support our learners have really challenged themselves to come up with creative and innovative concepts that they are inspired to see through to completion,” Alan, Digital Curriculum lead.