The perfect platform to prepare for VR and serious games industry
Discover how Arron Burch turned his BSc (Hons) Computing & Games Development* placement into a graduate job
Experience points
Build whole worlds at Plymouth
I was looking at a bunch of different computing and game styles courses in the UK but a lot of the gaming courses were level or games design that didn’t really concentrate on the programming side of things as well. But then I found out about the computing and games development course at Plymouth and came to an open day.
I was able to speak to the course leader who told me it covered programming and how to build software applications and applying that into games, rather than just the level design aspect. I knew from that point on it was the course for me.
Since then I've come a long way. When I first joined the University I had no prior programming experience at all and didn’t know anything about the process behind building games or software.
I have gone from knowing nothing to being confident enough now to build my own applications and games and work for companies in the industry.
I won 'Best poster' out of 207 submissions across the School of Computing for my final year project and had the opportunity to meet Jasper Barnes, Talent Acquisition Specialist and Marc Johnson, Senior Programmer, from Ubisoft, who came to give us a talk – this was such brilliant experience to be able to network and chat about my projects and the industry.
Multiplayer VR
Building Bobby’s Burgers
Bobby's Burgers VR is a virtual reality time-management cooking game developed in Unity3D using the HTC Vive. Players are able to interact with the environment of a burger van, serve customers and make a virtual living. A companion mobile application can also be used by spectators to order custom meals that the chef will need to create.
A lot of virtual reality games are very much single player games, but I found whenever I was playing with a VR headset I had a bunch of friends over playing the games as well, so I wanted to build an application that would allow everyone to join. I thought if I build a mobile application – because everybody has a mobile phone – they can all become part of the game.
Bobby's Burgers VR is a virtual reality time-management cooking game developed in Unity3D using the HTC Vive. Players are able to interact with the environment of a burger van, serve customers and make a virtual living. A companion mobile application can also be used by spectators to order custom meals that the chef will need to create.
A lot of virtual reality games are very much single player games, but I found whenever I was playing with a VR headset I had a bunch of friends over playing the games as well, so I wanted to build an application that would allow everyone to join. I thought if I build a mobile application – because everybody has a mobile phone – they can all become part of the game.
Bonus stage
Obtaining a job while on placement
Between the second and third stages I undertook a placement with Innovantage, a company in Cardiff who work on recruitment technologies.
I was part of the data acquisition team, where I was building robots to visit different websites to collect data to go into our applications to be used for analytics and big data processing.
I am actually going back with Innovantage after university – they offered me a job from the work I did while on placement and I've recently signed a contract with them which is fantastic.
Create your own apps, indie releases and serious games and build your profile as a software developer.
This course will challenge you to innovate in the games sector while honing your software development skills and working for real clients on live projects. Work individually and as part of a team, prove your capabilities with tech demos and releases. Our course is built on a core of computer science topics, supported by industry veterans and our own games development technologies lecturers.
Study BSc (Hons) Computing & Games Development* (course title now
