NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE - Niagara College game development professor Conor MacNeill proudly surveys the Welland campus’ library, packed with teams of students showing off their capstone assignments to hundreds of visitors recently.
“For us, this is like Christmas,” says the Niagara-on-the-Lake resident. “It’s our most exciting day of the year, our celebration of all the games and all the hard work that the students have put in this year. And it's a celebration of the program and all the great people in it.”
MacNeil’s excitement for the school’s game development launch (GDLaunch) event is palpable. Given that the experienced digital artist made the jump from the business world to become a full-time professor just as Niagara was getting the program off the ground 14 years ago, that’s understandable.
MacNeill has seen the program grow steadily from its first graduating class of about a dozen students to where it is today, with the huge room filled with graduating students from various programs, including one in partnership with Brock University.
“Some of our students have VR (virtual reality) games here,” MacNeill enthuses. “We've had VR games over the last five or six years, but in the first five years of the program, there wouldn't have been any. Now our students are doing everything. It's exciting.”
First-year student Mark Lampman is there to soak up that excitement. The NOTL native switched this year from engineering to game development. Like most students in the program, Lampman grew up playing games. He knows what he likes.
“I'm very impressed,” Lampman says of the games visitors to the launch are invited to sit down and try. “I actually play-tested a lot of them earlier in the semester. We were asked to give reviews and honest opinions. It’s cool to see how much further they've been able to come since then.”
Lampman and his friend Evan Fisher meet up with another NOTL resident, Dante Bell. He’s a fourth-year student in the Brock/Niagara joint co-op program, having recently completed internships with two Niagara-based companies, PIxelNAUTS and Creative Bytes Studio.
Bell is one of the producers for his team, called Slugworks. They are showing off their game, Green Thing from the Planet Jupiter.
“It’s a two-player competitive chase game inspired by Looney Tunes,” Bell explains. “It’s like a cat-and-mouse, but instead of a mouse, it’s a little green alien that has crash-landed on Earth. You go through the house and collect five household items needed to repair your UFO. And the other player is the cat trying to stop the alien.”
Slugworks consists of 12 students - seven artists and five programmers. Bell is one of the artists but also acted as one of the game’s leads.
“I did a lot of the project management, running the meetings, moderating them, coordinating our two departments together,” he says. “And as an artist, I helped the art team hone their art style.”
He estimates that each of the members of Slugworks put in 10 to 20 hours each week beginning in September, for a total of about 600 hours per person.
The Slugworks game is fast-paced and brightly animated, featuring both 2D and 3D graphics. While sitting in comfortable chairs, Lampman and Fisher catch on quickly and have a blast playing it.
Each team displaying its work has a similar setup. Many are marked with professionally made signs featuring their game’s graphics, while some go full-tilt into heavier promotional efforts.
“When we first did GDLaunch, there wasn't a lot of marketing surrounding games,” MacNeill says. “Now everybody's out there pushing their games. You've got people dressing in costumes and offering stickers and other great merchandise. They’re really selling it.”
What’s more, students from each team circulate the room playing each other’s games.
“I look around here and see that it's a big community,” MacNeill adds. “They're all supporting each other. And I think we have about 25 past graduates now working in the industry who are here today. Some of them mentioned they are looking for people. They come here because they know how good the program is.”
MacNeill says the prospects are good for graduates hoping to find work in the gaming industry. After a slight downturn in 2022, there has been growth in the gaming world. That trend is expected to continue steadily into 2027.
That bodes well for Lampman, who is on pace to graduate that year.
As for Bell, despite his enthusiasm and experience, he is embarking on a different career path than some of his classmates. As a member of the 809 Newark Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets in NOTL, he will join Canada’s Armed Forces.
“I’m going into the Regular Officer’s Training Program,” says Bell. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. “I’ll probably continue doing games as a hobby, just making projects with some friends. And if possible, I might apply that to the military for training simulations, something cool like that.”
Following the GDLaunch, MacNeill and the other professors of the Niagara College and Brock/Niagara programs accompanied 64 graduates to the annual Level Up Showcase at Toronto’s Harbor Castle Convention Centre. With 155 games on display there, it was like Niagara’s event on steroids.
Green Thing from the Planet Venus took second place for Achievement in Audio, The Small Scale Studio team’s Goofy Lil Guys captured the People’s Choice Award, while Pack Rat Studio’s Grasping Chaos earned an honourable mention. Dark Matter Observatory’s Ventomori also took home second place in Achievement in Accessibility.
“There were at least 5,000 people there,” MacNeill tells The Local. “Such an amazing atmosphere. And it’s the second year in a row we won the People’s Choice Award. The innovation you see, it's through the roof, and the work ethic you see people putting forth to make these games is just unbelievable.”