The game is back on: Sisler CREATE’s Game On event returns

After a pause for the pandemic, Sisler High School’s CREATE Program has hit the reset on its annual Game On event.

The school held its interactive digital media design event on June 20 for the first time in two years. Students from six different schools took part in this year’s event, spanning from Grades 5-8, 11-12 and post-high students. Participating schools included Andrew Mynarski V.C., Frontenac, Meadows West, Shaughnessy Park, Waterford Springs and Sisler’s CREATE students. 

Game On is a game design jam where students come to learn coding, prototyping, game design and more. Participants are challenged to create their own games and game design elements in a collaborative setting. For the 2022 event, students worked in Construct 3, a block-based, entry-level game design program. 

“We just wanted this to be really hands-on and fun for the students,” said Bernard Alibudbud, who teaches Interactive Digital Media in the CREATE program. “This is an event where students can quickly learn something, put a game together and just get their creative juices flowing.”

Another key element of the event has always been giving students the opportunity to learn and interact with people who are currently working in the industry; this year was no exception, with a virtual appearance from keynote speaker Ryan Santos, Creative Director at EA Sports.

Mr. Santos has 20 years of experience in the industry and has worked on EA Sports franchises that include Madden NFL, NBA Live and PGA Tour. He is also originally from Winnipeg. In many ways, experience has been the best teacher in his career.

“It wasn’t always smooth getting there, there was a lot of challenges. You’re always learning. I started as a game tester, became an artist, then a game designer, producer and then became a creative director,” Mr. Santos told students. “I learned a lot of different jobs along the way about how games are made…taking those life experiences and applying them to game design.”

He added that role-models and mentors were important to his career path.

“When you see people (in the industry) who look like you, who have experiences like you, it shows that it is possible,” he said. “I was born and raised in Winnipeg, never thought I would work in the videogame industry, never thought my career would take me to Orlando, Florida to raise my family. Building good role models within the videogame industry is important, because they become your mentors. For me, I had a lot of great mentors who helped teach me the ways—teach me how to develop videogames, teach me a good work ethic, to become very independent in learning these things. I’ve always been a self-starter, and tried to break down problems and figure out how to solve them on my own. But that was through a lot of guidance and mentorship, through other artists and designers within EA who did help me and became my role models.”  

Mr. Santos said that like many other industries, Covid has had an impact on the videogame industry.

“A lot of people were playing and buying games during the pandemic,” he said. “It also impacted how we make games. It became a challenge for us in the beginning to figure out how to work remotely. I’ve been working from home for over two years now. I just started going back into the office in April, on a limited basis. But primarily, 90 per cent of us are home for the majority of the time.

“Communication is key. Definitely communicating through Zoom and being very committed and on top of making an effort to meet with your colleagues and talk, has really helped us to continue to make games.” 

Sisler High School’s CREATE Program staff worked diligently through the pandemic to ensure that students were able to work remotely and continue to benefit from industry mentorships. 

“Bringing people in from industry gives students that real-life connection,” Mr. Alibudbud said. “They can see that this person is working in the field they want to work in; they’re doing it and making a living out of it. And the students see that they can do it too.”

Sisler CREATE students have gone on to work at EA Sports, Relic Entertainment, ICON Creative Studio, Blackbird Interactive and more. 

Micaella Langit is a Sisler CREATE post-high student who graduated at the end of June. While Micaella was originally focused on a career in Computer Science, she took a year off and entered the CREATE Program to explore her passion for video game design.

“I came back to Sisler and found out that I really wanted to focus on game programming,” Micaella said. “Now I’m going to Vancouver Film School next year for programming.”

While video games and interactive media have artistic elements and visual components, Micaella is also attracted to the coding aspects of the industry.

“I’m still not sure what exactly attracts me to coding, but throughout high school, my favourite subject was math,” she said. “I just fell in love with coding in my last year of high school.”

Student Daniel Patacsil wasn’t sure of his career goals until he took an advance coding course at Sisler. It piqued his interest and he applied to the Sisler CREATE post-high program with a focus on interactive digital media.

“We’ve had the opportunity to work with industry professionals from places like CBC Kids and Ubisoft…they gave us lots of tips on how to structure our time and how the overall industry works,” he said. “It’s helped me to come out of my shell. I used to be super introverted, but there’s not a lot holding me back now. The whole experience has been really cool here.”