Previous Vancouver Film School Game Design reviews described the opposite spectrum of the course. I attended the 2006-2007 program, and responded to the name GD06Melanie for about a year.
Taking into account that every cohort I have talked to was exposed to different curriculum and instructors, the following review portrays many shades of gray and only represents my very own and unique episode at VFS.
The Geeky Dream
As cliche as it might sound, I remember being an avid gamer and strongly wanting to make games since I was a kid, although the former was much clearer than the latter. I vaguely recall playing Worm or Snake on a machine that couldn’t be much older than me. I know I played Space Armada on the Intellivision in my grandmother’s living room before I could read instructions. I could go on and on with the day my dad brought us a Nintendo Entertainment System and the amount of hours I spent in the Sears playing Sonic or the amount of quarters I spent in the arcades but I think you get it: I loved games.
Years, games and consoles went by and, to my parents’ concern, I became a sort of live action peripheral to my computer. I’d try to hack games for free and create a mod for Quake 2, or host a server for The 4th Coming so I could modify the sprites of the game and have different colors of wings. Unfortunately, my dial-up connection and my lack of technical knowledge were in the way of my great ambitions.
I turned to something more accessible at the time, web development. With games in my heart, websites in my head, and my high school’s career booklet, I found the very first CeGEP program offering a multimedia course.1 At the time, this curriculum was offered in three different CeGEPS and was promoting ways to land jobs in web design/development, video production, graphic design, and games.
In summer 2005, I graduated from the Cegep de Saint-Jerome with a 3 year multimedia degree and did some research to know what should come next. The closest bachelors degrees offered in Quebec at the time were indirect subject like Computer Science, Communication and Graphic Design. I was very certain programming would not be my path and communication was just too broad and unclear. A specialized school in Montreal was offering a program focused on 3D (a.k.a. the NAD Center) and even if I had a blast visiting their campus, I couldn’t wrap my head around spending my days modeling or animating.
I was stuck. I could not find what I wanted and I couldn’t clearly identify what I needed. There was no such things as “game design” in Quebec. It was time to go back to my loyal computer and look outside my comfort zone. I found schools in France but they were focused on 3D as well, I found schools in the US but I was overwhelmed by all the unknowns, a different language, a different country, a different currency, it was too much for me at the time and I applied to VFS shortly after one of their promotional Canada tours. They had strong PRs, they gave out swag and were very supportive, I was very excited.
The Fastest Year Of My Life
A year later, I was starting VFS. I had functional English, no family nor friends in Vancouver and I was freelancing with a friend from Montreal, creating websites to support my ‘miscalculated budget expenses.’ I wanted to be involved as much as possible and get over the language barrier as fast as I could so I applied to be the student representative of my class and to my surprise, my follow classmates trusted they’d understand what I was saying and get used to the French accent or they all agreed that I needed to practice a lot and talk more.
Vancouver Film School‘s motto back then was that the school was very intense, like the industry would be once I graduated. All my instructors were experienced game developers and I had pretty much signed up for ‘a year long interview.’ I had to push my limits and be the best I could possibly be.
We started at 9:30am until 12:00. Lunch time. Then 1:00pm until 4:00pm. Dinner time. Finally 6:00pm to 9:30pm. Assignments time.
School was hard. No I meant H-A-R-D. We started at 9:30am until 12:00. Lunch time. Then 1:00pm until 4:00pm. Dinner time. Finally 6:00pm to 9:30pm. Assignments time. (I might be getting this wrong a bit, can’t really recall the schedule 100% right now) I would work on my freelance websites during lunch, work on my assignments during dinner, anything I had to read took me twice as much time and every class took all my attention so I could fully understand what was going on.
Next thing I knew, three months had gone by and my English was finally much better. Looking back, I know the only thing that saved me was my multimedia degree. VFS taught me game development and English, other students struggled with softwares or, say ‘personal issues.’ Everything goes so fast and yet there is still so much to be learned. You are in that year long interview and you are thrown hours of assignments and you’ve gotta swim or sink.
Instructors are highly motivated and are highly qualified in their areas of expertise but they are not teachers, they are instructors. The school never refers to them as teachers or professors so you might want to look up a dictionary and understand the nuance between the terms to see which fits your needs better.2
After All Is Said And Done
I think I did fairly well in school, I worked hard and I was proud of most of my projects but like I was once told, ‘you can spend 8 hours on a project to take it to 80% but it’ll take you another 8 hours to take it to 100%.’ I had to make decisions and invest my time wisely.
I started to apply for jobs a bit before the end of my program, and about a month after school I was moving back to Montreal and signing a contract with EA Mobile. I wasn’t as happy as one could be there and landed a job with some familiar VFS faces at Longtail Studios.
The Contradicting Reality
I can see how one could get in the industry after getting a bachelor degree in the closest area of interest, by doing tutorials and participating in modding communities, investing money by networking at GDC and participating in numerous festivals and competition but I personally did not have the discipline to setup such a structure for myself back then. I needed motivation, I needed support, I needed experienced professional and I needed a dream to believe in.
I recall how I wanted to quit two times because I was exhausted and broke.
I am happy I went to VFS, in the end, it was a great experience for me. I look back sometimes and nostalgia kicks in and I miss it. Then I recall how I wanted to quit two times because I was exhausted and broke and I am simultaneously grateful I have a job and truly believe I’ll never have to worry about employment as long as I keep doing the best I can.
Most of the time I do wish I had—at least—a bachelor degree because I think it is important to be educated professionally, hence by professors and teachers who’d be passing their knowledge of decades and centuries on a subject (history, science, literature, arts, whichever pleases you.)
Unfortunately, games are so new and so quickly evolving that I do not see this happening anytime soon. Yes I do know universities across the world are creating such curriculum as I write this but I wouldn’t want a “professor or teacher who never made a game” to tell me how to do one.
The Final Projects
Over my year at VFS, I have seen many students struggling or unfit for the program. They had never touched a computer or they were overwhelmed by the school and I wished VFS would have been more selective. Yes they try to recreate a working environment but most people in the industry will be qualified or they’ll get fired. One does not have the possibility to fire a follow student and yet they must work together.
VFS prepares you for a job in the industry but the final project’s structure was deficient. It is very hard to create a polished product by yourself, but nothing guarantees that you’ll have a good team by your side. It all depends on how many students enrolled in your group, how many stayed and how skilled they are. We were a small class, 13 at the beginning, 10 at the end and we badly lacked technical students. Mentors and Instructors did as much as they could but the sad reality is that each student does not stand the same chance in that last race.
I don’t know if VFS still does this but back then, we got to meet the 3D and Sound Design students to recruit them to help on our project. There was some downfalls there because it was a bit of a gamble, you try to motivate someone to join and help you but you might get a bad egg, or you might also be very lucky. My team and I were very lucky and everything went very smoothly with our collaborators but not everyone had the same results.
My Best Advice
It’s a great school but you’ll only get as much as you put in.
Do your research, see what’s the best fit for you. Try avoiding coming to VFS right out of high school unless you are already a king or a queen of Adobe CS4. Subscribe to IGDA, regardless of where you live, chances are they do have meetings in your city. If you live in Vancouver, ask to visit the campus, volunteer for the Game Design Expo, start networking now. It’s a great school but you’ll only get as much as you put in, and you’ve gotta be a bit lucky.
Only apply if you can push back all the intrusions of life and reality because success requires all your time and all your brains.
http://www.melaniegenereux.com
About Melanie Genereux
Game designer during the week and jack of all trades at night, you can find the Genereux designing a board, a website, a tattoo or simply reading a book while drinking some tasty tea and listening to good music.
1. A CEGEP (pronounced /’se???p/ or /’si?d??p/; French: Cegep) is a post-secondary education institution exclusive to the province of Quebec in Canada. CEGEP is a French acronym for Collège d’enseignement general et professionnel, meaning “College of General and Vocational Education”. They are comparable to community colleges, but are required to enter university, which is why secondary school and undergraduate degrees both are one year less in Quebec. (Wikipedia)
2. Generally, [...] a teacher is someone who teaches, typically in a school or other academic setting; an instructor would be someone who instructs, typically in a non-academic setting; professor almost always means a college-level teacher. Example: kindergarten teacher, high-school teacher, swimming instructor, ballet instructor, college professor. Kuronue | Talk 05:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC) (Wikipedia)
(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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I wish to take the vfs game design program, and I’m wondering if you think the foundation course is a good start or if it’s simply a waste of time/money?