DigiFest 2007 – Out of the box!

You are a 15 – 18 year old. You and your friend put together a application tape last fall and were accepted into this 3 day game creation event. Now here you are, sitting in the back seat as your friend Josh sits up front along with your teacher. It seems weird that you are driving with your teacher during spring break. It is so cool that he too also accepted into DigiFest. You think of some of the people you are about to meet. You’ve heard that students from the states and other provinces are going to be there. You wonder how many people applied to get into the program. It was fun putting together demo tape. It wasn’t a huge deal – just you playing a few games, cut in some of your drawings and a pretty simplistic model of an alien you did in tech class. Now you will be part of the group that will build a video game and be ready to market it – all in 3 days. Wonder what the big deal is about the closing ceremonies. Maybe some big important dude is going to be here.

You see a big welcome sign out front of this beautiful building. You think it looks like an office center. You grab your bags and head into the front lobby for check in. Wow! They have a waterfall in the school. This is going to be a cool time!

You get your room assignment and drop off your bags in what must be a math room. Pretty basic – but then who wants to sleep anyway… You scout out the washrooms and showers. You make a note: plan ahead - it may get crowded. Fresh cookies are cooking in the Home Economics labs. Hey Josh, look at all the people in the kitchens – we are going to be taken care of!

You enter what everyone calls the round room – posters hang all over the place. Sponsorship signs include coffee shop, soda pop, OS software, apps software, hardware, governments, sdxx - this looks huge! You see your teacher and head over. He is chatting with some senior artist from a huge game company in town. So this is what adults do at cheese parties! Talk and meet.

Everyone takes a seat. This person comes out welcomes us to this place. He teaches here, everyone says his students are special – I hope to meet a few! He calls himself the puppet master for the next few days – everyone laughs, but there is some wonderment. Mr. H hands the stage over to this person from a game company. He is the producer. Then he introduces a bunch of people from some program called DXLab. They are going to our experts for the next few days. Sounds like a cool program they are working on – and they put all of this together with a bunch of other volunteers. Now he asks us to stand up by our category. Artists, modelers, animators, programmers, and more make up the team. You thought this was going to be just computer guys. There are tech and art students from all over the continent. Most every group has a teacher in it – but they were just reminded that they were equal with everyone else in the group.

The clock starts! The producer takes over and starts talking about the game and what we have to do over the next 3 days. Cool ideas – fun game. And, what the heck, if it sells you get a few pennies! The working/learning/living locations are provided. This is going to be weird. Eating and sleeping at different times of the day. Everyone gets their department location and heads off. Wonder why there are textile students here? Your group heads over to the DCLab. So this is where it all began! The game characters are posted all over the place. But there only a few computers – what gives. Shift work! No wasting time! Lecture time. You just sat down and you are learning! Feels good. You want more! You start your model. The experts and industry guys sure know their stuff!

This repeats at all locations over the next few days, 24/7!! Learn, apply, refine, submit, approve.

You meet new friends. Everyone pulled together – even those who had completed their artistic and tech tasks helped clean the school. You grab a new t-shirt freshly made by the textile students.

You head over to a huge hallway. A church or something. Media trucks are everywhere. There are all kinds of important looking people in suits around. Speeches start. Everyone gets some recognition. The game is presented. Cool box! Cut scenes look awesome. We all watch as a couple of the team play. Hey, there is your model. Moves exactly as you wanted. You think: Must find Eric, his texturing is awesome! The game crashes, everyone laughs. Everyone cheers! A few more short speeches, then the boss of a major company takes the stage. This is what the rumors were about! He tells us we rock! He wants to apply for jobs at his company.

Sadly, we all say good-bye and head home. So many opportunities lie ahead!