Image Credit: CFJC Today / Kent Simmonds

By Jill Sperling

Video Game Creation

Students of Sa-Hali Secondary’s Digital Arts Tech Academy set sights on video game industry

Feb 4, 2020 | 4:22 PM

KAMLOOPS — Former students of the DigiPen Tech Academy at Sa-Hali Secondary School are making their mark in video game development.

The program, which is being rebranded at the Digital Arts Tech Academy (DATA), teaches students to design, program and create art for video games.

Many students have gone on to work in the industry and this year’s group of students has been inspired to work towards some big goals.

Mya Dickson has always had a passion for creating art.

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Through DATA, she’s learned how to apply her talent in a whole new way.

“At first I thought that I needed to become some artist … and then I realized that I could implement it into games and stuff and entertain people with art and colourful things,” Dickson said.

Instructor Andres Ruberg says the program is a way for students to learn all aspects of the video game design process.

“Students will come here sometimes with some foundational knowledge, sometimes never having written a piece of code in their lives,” Ruberg said. “But they’ll develop the fundamental skills that they would need to program a game, generate art for it, some basic design principles, some basic sound design, music, that sort of thing.”

Every year students team up in groups to present an original video game to industry judges.

Some students later find themselves in the industry themselves.

“We’ve had about a hand full of students who have gone through this program, and then as a result of their post-secondary experiences have been hired on by various companies in the Lower Mainland,” Ruberg said. “So we have a number of students now who work with Electronic Arts, some students who work with Next Level Games down in Vancouver which just created a game, Luigi’s Mansion 3, which won a Family Game of the Year award.”

The success of former students has been an inspiration to Eric Kitt, who hopes to pursue a career as a programmer.

“I want to go down to a college in America, test my luck there,” Kitt said. “There’s this one I’m looking at in particular, the DigiPen college. I remember hearing somewhere that this course was once supported by them. I figure if this is any indicator of what it’s like to learn there, I should definitely try it out.”

There were 18 students enrolled in the academy this school year and about half of them are looking at post secondary education in some form of digital media.

Parents with students who have an interest in attending DATA can apply on the school district’s website.