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Updates: Colleges & Business Units | Commercial Outlets and Nurseries
Advice for: Students, Parents and Carers | College Applicants | Apprentices
The three-day event, called Bit Crush Festival, was led by Level 3 students on the College's Games Development and Animation & Visual Effects courses. Running from Tuesday 22 November to Thursday 24 November, learners sold gaming equipment, accessories, and merchandise to bring in funds for Demelza Hospice Care for Children.
As well as the sale, students donated money to play a host of popular games during their lunch breaks, whilst they were entertained by bands formed of Music students. Over the last three days, Bit Crush Festival raised an amazing £3,456, meaning more than £6,890 has been donated through the event over the last two years.
Student Alanah Allin said: “This has been a really fun project to be involved with, and after three weeks of preparation it is amazing to see how successful the festival has been.
“Not only did we raise a lot of money, but students also engaged well with all the activities involved. Budding artists got to see their artwork being sold and enjoyed by people across the College, and the game stations proved really popular. All round, it was a great experience.”
In a first for the festival, Games Development students had the chance to showcase their own work. Having worked in teams to develop narratives, animation, and gameplay, Bit Crush attendees got to test out the coursework and leave feedback as part of the course assessment.
One aspiring game developer, Ollie Wyatt, was on hand to demonstrate his team’s game, Swooby the Mini Reaper.
Of the event, he said: “We spent over a month working on the games, so to have them up and running and on display is a big milestone for all of us. There were 12 games in total, with a wide variety of themes and gameplay styles.
“Engagement has been better than we could have hoped for. Despite setting it up next to some of the biggest games across platforms like Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox, there’s still been an incredible amount of people coming to play our games.”
Announcing the total raised, Media Programme Director, Adam Modley, said: “This is a fantastic result for us and it's thanks to the hard work of all our students and every member of staff who has supported the event. It’s completely a group effort, and we’re always grateful for the incredible amount of work put in across the College to make Bit Crush happen.
“This year's festival was an amazing success, and our students all made a valuable contribution through the events they set up, their volunteering efforts on stalls, artists' row, musical performances, and a dance routine from Performing Arts students.
“We also debuted our new Bit Crush Arcade project, featuring games designed in a collaboration between Games Development and Animation & VFX students and we were pleased to see so many people engaged with their work.
“Overall, everything contributed to the lively, positive spirit of the event, helping us to raise funds and awareness for a very worthy cause.”
With smaller-scale events planned to run throughout the year, the Bit Crush JustGiving page remains live. Click here for more details.
