Digital T Level students declare ‘Game on’ at art gallery

A video game launched at Wolverhampton Art Gallery by Walsall College students has been fully praised by members of the public.

The Roblox game, Escape from Wolverhampton Art Gallery has seen the entire gallery come to life in 3D.  Virtual visitors are encouraged to tour each section and navigate their way through a series of puzzles before making it to the exit and winning the game.

It was produced by four Digital T Level – Production, Design and Development students as part of their industry placement and premiered at the Gallery’s Friday Lates event which was themed around digital coding.

The event saw around 20 visitors of all ages take up the challenge.

Dinosaur Kilby, Creative Producer for Digital and Simon Suphandagli, Creative Producer for Children and Young People at the gallery together guided the students through their design brief.

Simon commented: “Public feedback for the Roblox game was overwhelmingly positive.  Everyone at The Gallery was impressed too.  This is testament to the students utilising their gaming expertise, design and coding knowledge to great effect.

“They really understood our vision around merging fine arts in a traditional setting with a digital 3D world in order to make our visitor experience even more immersive and enjoyable.

Simon continued: “Overall, it’s a fantastic achievement for the students.  I hope it helps shape their future career success.”

The industry placement is a key component of the T Level qualification.  Students spend 80% of their course in the classroom, learning the skills that employers need.  The other 20% is spent in a workplace putting these skills into action.

Student, Alex Lloyd said: “With the opportunity to work on such an amazing project, this placement has more than lived up to my expectations.  The four of us assigned ourselves specific jobs to do around design, scripting and programming and we made sure we all learned and benefitted from the experience.”

Student Uzair Kasam agreed.

He said: “We had a clear vision in mind in terms of making sure the game was suitable for all ages and highly interactive so that people would be up for the challenge.  We’ve achieved a lot in the time we had, which is a huge deal for us.  Not only that, we’re in a position to keep on improving on what we’ve learned.”

Brandon Toy who also developed the game added: “I’m keen to take up an Apprenticeship this summer.  My placement will help me stand out and have something on record that I can show future employers.

“The good thing about this course and the placement is that they both include essential industry skills like coding.  It means I can be flexible about exactly how I decide to progress in my career going forwards.”

The students will continue their placement at Wolverhampton Art Gallery into spring where they will continue to develop the game.

Further information about the Digital T Level course can be found here.