From an idea to your own game studio in 3 weeks

July 30 in Novosibirsk ended the educational GameDev section for students. The organizers were Alawar Entertainment , a well-known casual games publisher for PC & mobile platforms. For three weeks, students from different cities of Siberia developed their own video games and learned from practitioners how to make a successful product.
More than 100 applications were submitted for GameDev school, 37 people took part in the section. The lucky ones who passed the competitive selection listened to a series of lectures and master classes from Alawar employees devoted to the creation of games for PC, mobile platforms and social networks from elaboration of an idea to the intricacies of sales and distribution. In addition to Alawar representatives, the training was also conducted by the "guest star" - Dmitry Dolgov, technical producer of 1C for external game projects.



The main part of the section was the team development of their own gaming applications. The guys united in teams where there were programmers, and artists, and composers. The entire educational program was divided into three blocks. The first block was devoted to the game market and game design, the output was to protect your concept in front of the production jury. Next came the block devoted to the schedule. And only a few days were allotted for programming. This lesson plan has demonstrated that a wide variety of roles are important in game development.
The result was seven toys: four for PC, two for iOS, and one multi-platform application. The genres of games are mostly arcades, but there were logical games and a "farm". Of course, three weeks is not enough to create a full-fledged product that can be released to the market, but those teams that have developed during the training will be able to continue working on their ideas. And Alawar will continue to accompany the teams, providing the necessary assistance.



If we talk about the prospects that await the team, then two projects will continue to work with Alawar as a publisher, and the participants of another project discuss the prospects of distributing the application by Alawar. Such cooperation includes not only the marketing promotion of the game, but also assistance in finalizing the application. Well, the three projects launched at the School will qualify for places in the business incubator of the Technopark of the Novosibirsk Academgorodok, where they will be set up as development studios and receive benefits for renting an office, which is so necessary for startups.
Alawar employees have already invited two section listeners to think about working for the company, and soon the Alawar HR department will begin the selection for an internship, in which students will gain commercial development experience at Alawar Friday's Games (Novosibirsk) or Alawar Stargaze (Barnaul) studios and see how arranged work in a large publishing house.



In general, there were much more people who wanted to participate than the section format could afford, so the training intensities would be repeated in one format or another.

GameDev Section Page.