NextGen students recently flexed their programming skills as they took on an against-the-clock coding challenge to program a text-based RPG combat cycle game in just two days! Following receiving an industry brief, the students had to create a data structure for the player, enemy, weapon & attack types that showcased programming fundamentals, before completing and submitting their code, project plan, and game.
To help develop the important skill of responding to feedback, each student was paired with an industry professional who offered feedback and guidance on their work after day one. These included Byron Atkinson-Jones, Principal Software Engineer at PlayStation, Riccardo Amico, Co-Founder and Head of Development at Playtra Games, and Tris Smith, AI Engineer at Creative Assembly.
Riccardo Amico, Co-Founder and Head of Development at Playtra Games, said:
“The students’ work I saw was already at a good level; some were using Lists and trying complex systems after day one. It’s very important to teach programming in college because programming is not just about writing code, it’s also maths, physics, logic, and more. It helps to develop the mind in a more constructed way and helps students to understand the task system, skills that they can also apply in real life.”
Sam Webster, Operations Manager at NextGen, said:
“We know from speaking with employers that programmers are always in demand, that’s why we worked with industry to create this programming challenge! The very mention of programming can be intimidating to those starting out, all those numbers, letters and symbols in a strange order, it’s literally another language. But programming is the foundation of all digital creativity, without it all the art and design falls apart, so it’s important to understand it by tackling it head on.
“It was great to see the students testing their programming knowledge during this challenge and writing complex working code in such a short space of time. Thank you to our industry guests for sharing their guidance and feedback, and for inspiring our student to continue pushing and refining their programming skills.”