The Faculty of Multimedia Creativity was in high spirits on Tuesday. Seven
different groups of students from semester four, five, and six presented their
video games to Limkokwing’s industry partners. They have been perfecting
their games over the past three months. This is an opportunity, organized by
Limkokwing, for students to get feedback from industry partners and possibly
have the chance at an internship. There were twelve guests of honor who are
also Limkokwing industry partners such as, Codemasters, E-onestudios, Microsoft
and Nokia.

Pang Lih-Hern co-founder of Liquid Rock Games was excited to see the potential
interns Limkokwing has to offer, he noted;

“We basically want to see how the students perform in their presentation and
if there are any potential students we can hire in the future. These mixers are
very important mostly in connecting with the students first and give them an idea
of how the industry runs and works. While doing this we will also look into the
talent side of this, we need to know what level the students are at and from that
we can see how we need to train them from there.”

Each group began their presentation with a slide show comprising of
their concept, influences and the different roles each group member had.
The first presenters were from semester four, their work was impressive
for their experience level and the industry partners seemed impressed.

The final year students gave more confident presentations and showed their skill
by adding their own whimsical style. Amongst the presenters was award winning
student Plentiful Lee. Plentiful and his team won Best of Show award in the Code-
a-thon competition in 2009. In this competition they had 30 hours to program
and design a video game. Plentiful joined to the mixing session where he got to
receive feedback on where his group needs to improve and what their strengths
were.

“It was a great chance for us to be exposed to the industry. We got to find out
how strong our presentation skills were and what standards we had to meet in

order to impact the industry. I talked with the Ivon Smith from Codemasters and
he gave our group really good feedback so I’m happy with the way it turned out.”

The last level to present was a special group, all students from one semester 5
class joined together to form a team. Although they were missing a programmer
their game was much more advanced in the design sector. Their presentation
was professional and the quality of their game almost matched industry
standards.

Ivon Smith, technical art trainer, from the prestigious and famously well known
games company Codemasters was impressed by the level of work the students
produced. But this was not a surprise to him as he has worked with Limkokwing’s
alumni’s before which is what brought him to the presentation.

“There were 3 or 4 definite games I was interested in whether it was the
communication skills, the quality of the graphics, or their ability to work and
communicate as a team that was important too. The level usually between
graduates and industry is enormous. They have to get more specialized they have
to get more focused the quality level has to go up. The only way to get that across
is for industry people to interact with the students and the lectures in any way
we can. In the first week of their industry experience, they will triple their quality
level if they go to the right company.”

The students were given the chance to mingle with the industry representatives
and get important feedback as well as discussing possible internship
opportunities. This area of the curriculum is offered by Limkokwing as part of the
INDUSITY concept which is industry within the university. This is believed to be
one of the key parts of giving the fresh graduates a head start into their careers
ahead.

Written by Victoria Edwards