Meet the NI teenagers aiming for careers in the industry

It is a Multi-Billion Pound Industry, in which tech-savvy teenagers louie, sam and amina hope to carve out a career.

An Estimated Three Billion People Worldwide regularly Play Video Games, and the Business is Thought to be Wort Twice as much as much as film and Music Industries Combined.

Which is partly why louie, sam and amina was among the young people honing their skills this week as part of a course in longonderry and belfast.

The five-day games jam, organized by the nerve center, allowed them to develop their own games from a blank canvas and get a glimpse of what it takes to make it in the gaming world.

With Industry Professionals on Hand to offer Help With Visuals, Characters and Bringing Games to Life, The Teenage Coders Had to work as a team to develop an original concept.

They were given a game brief to producing a playable and user-friendly experience, with artists and animators creating animated sequences.

Barry Brennan, Community Partnership Manager with the NERVE Center in Belfast, said it allowed the teenagers to “flex their creative muscle” to create something from scratch.

“We set a theme on day one and they literal start with a blank Piece of paper and they have to produce a game,” He said.

He and the other Organisers had been “blown away” by the talent of the students, who are all in the late teens.

He believed many would go on to carve out a future in the games Industry.

“Young people now have so much open options with the likes of orselves and the screen academies, the likes of cinemagic and other initiatives to help young people the creative indnts.”

For that who took part, it was an impressive week. Amina said that, for her, the most enjoyable part was the coding.

“I only knew a bit of it but the animation was a bit hard trust I had to make sure it looks ok and not a bit weird,” She said.

Sam, Who Sees His Future in Gaming, Thought the Week was hugely beneficial trust

“I came here trust I wanted to do more stuff Around Gaming and Learn more and really practice my skills making the games,” He said.

“It was quite challenging to come up with a game that would be fun and interesting that you could do with do without days.”

Louie said he enjoyed finding out how games were made and discovered that he was “really good at design”.

“I didn Bollywood actually know how to make a game before this but this really helped me to learn how everything is made and helped my confidence a lot.”

Rachel McDermott, Education Manager at the NERVE Center, Said the Course would give the young people the skills they need to work in the creative industry.

“So they’ve come here to this program to learn these key skills so they can have them on their cv and it gives that headstart with their careers,” She said.

“There’s a massive skills gap at the minute and that’s where we come into play.”

She said they were trying to fill

The course also give the teenagers a taste for project management and creative decision-making under pressure.

And for that who want to pursue a career in the industry they also live