Production

My production experience began with my introduction to the games industry

In February of 2022, I took part in the Prince’s Trust Get Into: Games Design course where I was introduced to Marcia Deakin (NextGen), Gina Jackson OBE (SKILLFull) and Nigel Twumasi (mayamada). It was on Gina’s recommendation that I took the role of producer in our team. Delivering a prototype of a board game in just 4 days. I felt comfortable leading my team to create our game to the brief of creating a board game based on an existing franchise. This was a fantastic first look at production and the games industry and is the reason that I now work in games.

Charlie was a delight to have as part of the course. He was an instinctive and natural leader bringing together the team, setting tasks and ensuring everyone was involved and doing OK. His team's board games design was really fun and competitive, he took and gave feedback constructively and he is a very confident and engaging public speaker.

– Gina Jackson OBE, SKILLfull

I had the pleasure of working with Charlie on a games design course where I was able to see and support his outstanding development. I found him to be a passionate and very knowledgeable worker who is able to adapt within a team, encouraging other members to participate while being able to lead where needed. I believe Charlie would be a valuable member of any team and would not hesitate to recommend him.

- Nigel Twumasi, Mayamada co-founder

Working with mayamada

mayamada’s “Do I Look Like a Gamer?” Campaign

mayamada’s “Do I Look Like a Gamer?” campaign and gamepad events focus on promoting inclusion and diversity in video games. Taking my experience producing board game jams, I helped to support the Family and Friends game jam run by mayamada as part of their campaign. The jams (taking place in 2022 and 2023) ran over a single day. I supported small teams to create interesting board games, giving production advice and helping everyone to have a finished prototype by the end of the day. Children as young as 9 were able to participate, suggesting their own ideas and everyone had some great fun while discussing opportunities in the games industry.

I’ve continued to support mayamada’s work on their campaign, managing teams and engaging the community at the BFI Southbank, introduction to industry events and more. I also commentated an E-Sports tournament at their Gamepad Live! show.

Unseen Galaxy

In July 2022, Stephen Hey reached out to me thanks to my work with him on previous research project asking me to help him with his ongoing project, Unseen Galaxy. This was designed to be a not-for-profit games publisher with a focus on developing students’ understanding of the game development. During the two months I was working on the project, I worked on creating resources for students to be able to use to better understand development and their roles within it. I helped Stephen take the project to Develop 2022 where I discussed the project with industry professionals. Unfortunately the project has been put on hold, but you can view the resources that we created for the project using the buttons below.

Charlie’s work on Unseen Galaxy was excellent, he is such a capable young man and understood innately the help I needed on the project. Charlie was proactive and resourceful and always delivered beyond expectations.

- Stephen Hey, Unseen Galaxy

NextGen Skills Academy

I’ve been developing my production knowledge during my time with NextGen

I began working for NextGen in September 2022 and joined the team full time in February 2023. In this time I’ve been involved in many different projects, my favourite having been the opportunities I’ve had to be involved in student work experience programmes. Students are given a brief on a Monday morning and have until Friday afternoon of the same week to get everything done. I joined teams along with an industry professional in the week to give feedback on their work, offer production advice and answer questions. Additionally, I offered daily standups for students to join whenever they liked to review their work as if they were a development studio. Students found my insights helpful and created some extremely impressive work. You can see some examples on the NextGen website (linked below).

In September and October 2023, I, along with Sam Webster, visited a number of colleges that were teaching the NextGen Level 3 Extended Diploma in Games, Animation and Visual Effects to introduce both myself and NextGen to the first years. During these introductory sessions, we discussed a student made game (pictured), favourite and least favourite games and begin looking at how we’re inspired to create games. These sessions are always great fun and get students thinking about some of the fundamentals of production well ahead of their first development cycle.