Campers are creators of video games

Wake Tech course targets youngsters

RALEIGH -- You won't find any video games with a koala named Rhi-Rhi yet. But the character is a victory for a Wake Technical Community College effort to staff the growing video game industry.

The star of "Curse of the Koala," Rhi-Rhi was created by a quartet of teenage girls as a summer camp offshoot of Wake Tech's fledgling video game development curriculum. The camp was in part educational and in part recruiting tool for Wake Tech.

Since last year, Wake Tech has aggressively pushed inexpensive game development education for community colleges.

This week, the N.C. Community College System president, Martin Lancaster, is expected to sign an agreement between Wake Tech and four other Piedmont community colleges.

The Instructional Service Agreements would allow students at Surry, Wayne, Pitt and Nash community colleges to earn credit through Wake Tech's video game education program at their home schools.

Wake Tech's program began with an $850,000 National Science Foundation grant. The money funded a $93,000, 24-station high-end Alienware computer lab. And it created enough positions to teach the 123 students enrolled.

The program has been aided by the local video game development community.

Walter Rotenberry, a computer science instructor at Wake Tech, asked advice from the Triangle chapter of the International Game Developers Association.

Wake Tech designed a curriculum to teach the fundamentals developers seek. Organizers tapped local game developers, including Epic Games in Cary and Red Storm Entertainment in Morrisville, for advice.

The industry is growing rapidly, and the staff needed to create a game is getting larger. So it's getting harder for game producers to find talent.

That void led to the creation of the Wake Tech program and the four other programs.

As for the kids at the summer camp, most of them between ages 13 and 15, they took quickly to the task of creating a working game in one week, said Brad Swearingen, an instructor for the game development program.

The first try was part of Applied Technologies Exploration Camp, run by the school's engineering department head, Susan Meardon.

The first run included four girls among 20 students, a much higher percentage of females than in the actual game industry.

The genders played up to stereotypes.

"The boys are all interested in shooting games," Swearingen said. "The girls want to make a game about a koala."