Stephen Tang

MSc Computer Games Technology

From Malaysia

Games are creative contents designed

and developed to entertain all encompassing multi-discipline course. Games are fun to play with, but it takes years of work and research to develop often with frustration and endless hours of debugging. But, the joy and success of seeing one of your games playable is similar to the hard work of a child constructing a building using LEGO. If you are determined, severely creative, willing to sacrifice most of your sleep time, and most of all obsessed about games all the time. I believe you have what it takes to do the computer games course. 

" Hi! I am Stephen Tang from Malaysia and I studied MSc. Computer Games Technology in Liverpool John Moores University (JMU). Well some might not have heard of JMU before, but let me rephrase, it is Liverpool John Moores University! Remember that! 

I graduated from Tunku Abdul Rahman College, Malaysia with an Advanced Diploma Cum Bachelor Degree (Campbell University, USA) in Computer Science major in Computing Mathematics in June 2002. Obsessed with programming and multimedia, I was given an opportunity to pursue my Master Degree in Computer Games in JMU. Never in my life, had I imagined such wonderful thing would happen to me (I got a sponsorship by my employer for the study). For a person who is financially unstable and dying to gain more knowledge like me, this is a whole new chapter in my life.

Departing my family and lovely girlfriend back home was hard for me. But the excitement and the eagerness to gain advanced knowledge in computing kept me focused. I find it easy to blend into the culture here. Life here is pretty much the same back home except that there are more Westerners, climate, and the living lifestyle.

For the past 12 months, I have transformed from a non-game literate person to a potential game developer. I am neither a gamer nor a game enthusiast like most of the course mates. A person brought up from a middle income family would not be granted with every little boys dream, a game console. Compared to others, I have the least gaming experience. I counted all the games that I have played in the past five years and there are still remaining fingers on my hands (that was when I begin to join the course). So many might raise a question,

What are you doing in this course dude?

Well, unlike many others course mates I have different goals on this course; to graduate with a good Master Degree, to put a test of my knowledge gained from my undergraduate studies, to learn as much as possible about digital games, and if possible to get a placement for PhD.

How is it possible for a guy like you to gain so much of knowledge in just 12 months??

This is one of the questions one might ask me. My best answer would be?? books! Play more games during the course! Well to be appropriate, the lecturers here have given me a lot of useful guidance for me to gain the knowledge. Many might think that the information given to the students is too shallow, however I think it is sufficient to give a head start for me. If that is not enough, the course works, the pressures, the expectations and the money you invested to gain the knowledge will just help you to push yourself a little harder to learn more.  Anyway I should remind readers that, this is a MSc. programme, not an under-graduate program. Thus there is a certain degree of independent studies involved before one can be given the MSc. title.

Do I get to play lots of games?

Many people would think that in order to graduate the course, he or she should be the best gamer. Emmm? I do not think this implies correctly in this scenario. A game developer does play games, but do remember that you will need to spend more time creating the game; designing and developing it (games creation is not easy, but a rewarding experience). I do get to play games in the JMU Game Lab (you guys will love this place. Loaded with 2 PS2s, 2 XBoxs, 2 GameCubes and 2 High-end gaming PCs. There are also some console development kits available. It?s paradise!), not for fun but research purposes. I may sound a little too serious, but one thing I need to clarify, it is very enjoyable. Look at this point you will never be scolded anymore while playing time, simply because we are researching while playing. We research the game play experience, the graphics, the AI, the audio, the physics, the game balance and more. We do play, but we play with a different attitude, as work and not merely just for fun.

Is the course interesting? Or is it boring?

Learning how to design and develop games requires creativity, innovation, hard work, plenty of sleepless night and concentration. It sounds like a complicated course, but hang on?. It is worth while after you have gone through the process. Lecturers in JMU are very friendly and helpful. They might seem a little quite most of the time, but that does not implies that they have lack of qualifications nor the knowledge to teach. After 12 months (or less when you take away the holiday breaks), you might understand them better. Their intention is clearly to provide space for individual research and self-development. This is a crucial skill that one needs to learn indirectly from the course. However this does not means that we do not need them. Their experience is much more abundant than ours. Their advice can help to answer some of the 'dead-knots' which need to be untied. Their pressure and expectation are the standards of knowledge and skill we will possess if we manage to fulfil it. The lecturers aren't boring people or the modules. The course contents are very interesting and every time I get the new coursework specification, I just can't wait to begin and try my best to impress the lecturers and my friends.

Do you get to expand your portfolio?

 Well this would depends on how good you are. If you can produce very high quality work, you can gain good marks and at the same time use it as a demo for your work. But I think this is not an appropriate question to ask. Instead you probably would be interested to know,

How can I do well in the course?

Doing well in the course implies learning more, better demos, better future. As for myself, I have a principle of my own, Don't try your best, do your best!? Trying your best simply is not good enough because one may just come to a point where doing a coursework is simply to pass the requirement and get a MSc. then probably get a job. But if you give your very best to your coursework, you may see many things happen just as the way you want it to be. I always tell myself to do the best even thought that everything is near to an end (deadlines). Do not give up till you have done everything because you will regret that you have the opportunity to give that little extra work to gain a few more marks to excel in your work. Sleepless night, frustration, depression and pressure go away, but achievement stays forever!

How's friendship?

 I can't categorise myself as an extrovert nor introvert, but I do have friends in Liverpool. Some of my best friends from the course are David Gee (Cambridge, UK), Frank Mingbo Li (Shenzhen, China), Robert Browne (Dublin, Ireland) and Zain Ul Haider (Manchester, UK). We enjoyed the time doing work together, sharing our problems, exchanging ideas or even just playing around. Even though we are competing against each other to get better results, we are still friends. There are people that come into our lives and peoples that passes-by. The friends I made here are people that I will always remember and stay in my life.

Is that just the friends you know?

 Well not actually, I have other friends too and we also do some activities together (It is a long list, well my dear friends. You know who I am writing about here.). Apart from just studying, I do actually have some spare time to socialize. However this would require proper time management. You might probably have heard, If you don't plan, you plan to fail!? "

After a big loop, it is time for me to depart. Back to the place I belong. It is sad to depart from your friends, the place you stay, the university and Liverpool. Life will never be the same again. This place has given me many good memories and friends for life. Once I leave here, I will be missing everything here.

I would like to take this opportunity to give my thanks to all the module leaders in the course, Dr. Martin Hanneghan (Advanced Game Programming, Game Design and Project Dissertation), Mr. Abdennour El Rhalibi (Software Development for Games), Dr. David England (Virtual Reality and Games Workshop) Professor Madjid Merabti and Dr. Robert Ashwith (Internetworking), Dr. Claude Ghaoui (Human Computer Interaction, MSc. Programme Leader), Dr. Rubem Pereira (Project Dissertation), Dr. Qi Shi (Programme Leader), Mr. Lee Bamber (Game design) and Professor A Taleb-Bendaib (Research Methods). These are the peoples that have made the course successful and I am sure that they will improve the course in the years to come."