University of Abertay Dundee Creates Training Program Using Instinct Studio

Author: by Beth A.

The University of Abertay Dundee and Instinct Technology have signed a deal in an effort to create experiential, repeatable learning for game programmers. Under the terms of the deal, Abertay will develop a training program to be marketed along with Instinct’s virtual games development studio as a package available for licensing by universities and colleges teaching games design. This product will offer games design educators a fully integrated package of industry-standard games development tools and university-level training courses. This new product package will be future-proofed through a unique “source code vaulting” feature of the deal between the two organizations, ensuring the product is always supported and evolved. The new offering will also complement the first fully-functional, commercial release of Instinct Studio, due to be unveiled at the Develop Conference in Brighton. Instinct Studio is billed as a 'one-stop-shop' game development suite which provides its users with a variety of WYSIWYG tools, including project-based resource management, fully-integrated run-time editable components, hot loading and real-time previewing. The suite is backed up by supportive technology, tools, and documentation and has been designed to integrate seamlessly with existing 'best in class' middleware solutions for specialist functionality. The educational product will be a fully functional varsity license of the commercial product, which will incorporate the custom-designed training program and will be priced at educational license rates. Instinct Technology's Business Development Director, Mike Gamble, commented, "We have believed for some time that this has been something of a gap within the industry and look forward to playing our part in helping Abertay create innovative game development courses based on the Instinct Studio technology." “We are delighted to have concluded this deal with Instinct Technology, Abertay can now not only provide a “best in class” commercial game middleware platform for our own students, but also, we take on the welcome role of a centre of excellence and guarantor of longevity for these technologies,” added Abertay’s Professor of Video Games Technology, Paul Fullwood. “In the coming years Abertay will disseminate these technologies and its training program to other universities and colleges. We see this as a pivotal role for universities in support of the creative industries.”