The Pitch, Alpha and Beta presentations of the students of the 2023/2024 Graduation have ended.

The student’s favorite part of studying at ARC Academy is the last semester (Game Lab) where they work on creating a video game, each playing a role according to their programs – Game Design, Concept Art and 3D Art. Developing a real project helps them express their creativity, show what skills they have acquired and work together as a team, similar to the process in an indie game studio. This year, two teams created their games under the guidance of Evgeny Tenev, lead game producer at Creative Assembly Sofia and a lecturer at the Academy. The work on them goes through four main stages – Pitch, Alpha, Beta and Gold, and for each, they present a presentation of how far they have come with the tasks. At the end of each presentation, the students receive feedback from the jury, and industry professionals, which they must implement in the game and move on to their tasks for the next stage of development.

Pitch Presentation

During the Pitch Presentation on March 16, each team presented their completed game concept. The two teams talked about what genre it is, what the story is, who the heroes and villains are, what its purpose is, and how many levels they plan to create. In this stage, they showed the team and the jury, in detail, their development schedule and an analysis of the risks during the process. Everyone was extremely impressed by the ambitious and creative ideas, giving the students guidance for improvement and facilitation during the work. They wished them success at the final.

Alpha Presentation

At the Alpha presentation, which took place on April 20, the students developed the initial versions of their video games, and the jury had the opportunity to try them out during the presentation. Both teams did a quick retrospective, reminding us of the feedback they received during the first stage and sharing what they could improve. Again, they went through all the mandatory components – the story, characters, levels and mechanics. The jury expressed their critical point of view by encouraging students to face the challenges and improve their game projects.

Beta Presentation

During the Beta presentation, which took place on May 18, both teams showed what improvements they had made based on Alpha feedback. They took us deeper into their games and told us more about the combat systems and gameplay. All judges had the opportunity to play the nearly finished games and provide final guidance and feedback before the final presentation. They unanimously expressed their impression of the hard work and the results achieved.

Jury

The jury that evaluates the projects is formed by professionals with many years of experience in the game industry, who work in large studios in the country and abroad. The presentations were attended by Borislav Bogdanov – art director at SnapShot Games, Nikolay Dimitrov – technical director at Gameloft Sofia, Milen Ivanov – founder of RyseUp, Antony Christov, Alexander Lene – Studio Lead Game Designer, Tanko Shokerov – studio manager at Gameloft Sofia, Georgi Dinchev – studio director at Creative Assembly Sofia, Stani Milev – creative producer at Chase a Cloud, Sava Komitski – creative director at Chase a Cloud, Alexander Filipov – Studio Lead Game Designer at Beast Burst Entertainment, Ivelin Trifonov – art director at Gameloft Sofia and Adrien Bachi – Founder of Chibi Phoenix. The professionals guided the students and gave objective feedback to improve their projects and get as close as possible to the actual evaluation in the field.

We at ARC Academy are proud of the work of our students and the grades the teams have achieved over this period. This final stage is the culmination of their two years of education and an opportunity to showcase the skills and knowledge they have acquired over the school year. The end of this adventure of theirs is coming, which will be set with the final Gold presentation on June 15th.

Anyone interested in seeing our students’ final projects, please come to our open doors on June 16th. During the event, they will talk more about the development process of the video games and you will be able to play them.