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Students from the Audiovisual Department at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen are scoring points again – the game Antopolis, which was created as part of the game design course, won an award at this year's International Festival of Animated Films Anifilm. In brief, the game takes the player, who becomes an ant queen, into a war with a frog. After losing battles, the opponent has already managed to subjugate the anthill, and the queen's goal is to eliminate him. However, before she does so using a deadly bomb, she must first get back to her own anthill.

The game was developed by students from FDU and a student from the Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Applied Sciences. The two faculties have been collaborating in teaching computer game design and development for about 10 years, and Antopolis is one of many games that have been created as part of this long-term collaboration. The game Antopolis was also presented at the Co.Con Fest, which took place in June at DEPO2015 in Pilsen.

We talked to Jakub Guman, who teaches the game design course at Sutnar Faculty and has more than 12 years of experience in development studios, about what it takes to design a functional and entertaining game, how to think about game design, and why the gaming industry has long since overtaken the film industry.

What does it take to create a functional, entertaining, and visually strong game – even in a small student team?

First, figure out what kind of game the team actually wants to make: how it should be played, what will be fun about it, what mechanics it will be built on. Then comes the more complex part: designing and implementing a functional prototype so the team can find out whether it will actually work, or if it needs to be conceived differently (in this phase, usually 80% of ideas get discarded). Next comes the actual production: coding, modeling objects, writing texts, drawing, animation, sounds... Running parallel to this should be the testing phase to check if everything runs as it should. And very often the promotional and marketing side gets underestimated, so that potentially good game doesn't get lost among hundreds of others. All of this can take anywhere from several months to several years depending on the project's complexity and team size.

You spent over 12 years in development studios. What topics or skills do you consider key for beginning game designers – and how do you develop them at Sutnar Faculty?

I should add that before that, I had another 10 years of making games as a hobby: from writing tabletop role-playing games through flirting with board game modifications to producing LARPs. I mention this because many students may have similar experiences that don't go to waste when making games. It's important to have an open mind, be able to solve problems outside established structures, not give up, and most importantly, be able to discard non-functional ideas, accept constructive criticism and work with it. Becoming a game designer doesn't require so much a skillset as a mindset.

Your teaching shows students how to think about games so they entertain players. What does this mean in practice? Can "fun" be designed?

Fun can be designed, although the definition of what is fun and what isn't is quite subjective. We can apply some universal principles or learn from already published games, but the key is always being able to think about the game in a broader context: why this particular mechanic is fun or why this other one isn't, how individual aspects can interact with each other, and last but not least: what games we ourselves would enjoy playing.

What other student projects besides the game Antopolis, which received an honorable mention at this year's Anifilm festival, have caught your attention recently – and perhaps also that of judges or the public?

I wouldn't want to favor someone or demotivate someone else by not mentioning their project specifically, so I'll allow myself to answer more generally: you can see with many students that games interest them and they'd like to pursue that direction in the future as well. Such projects driven by passion and internal motivation then stand out above the rest and are a joy to play. Several emerge each year, and we take the best ones with us to gaming conferences, where both Sutnar Faculty and the students themselves can show them off with pride.

The gaming industry has already outgrown the film industry – where do you see its strength, and what role can the Czech (or Central European) environment play in it?

The greatest strength of games is in their interactivity and the ability to write your own stories. As a player, it's me who enters the fictional world and experiences its stories. I can seek my own paths, gain experiences I wouldn't otherwise have in ordinary life (like piloting a submarine, flying to space, building my own zoo). The Czech Republic has the potential to become a gaming superpower: just look at the number of quality studios and games that come from here. By European (and in some measures even global) standards, Czech successes are truly unique.

Students often participate in so-called Game jams – what do these events bring them and how do they translate into teaching or future projects?

A Game jam (team game creation on a given assignment within limited time) is an opportunity to experience game development firsthand, including all its positives and flaws – the ability/inability to cooperate with other professions, meeting/missing deadlines, treading impassable paths, and the joy when you manage to complete a project on time (usually within 48 hours). Students who have already been through a Game jam have gained the most valuable thing: practical experience. I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that one Game Jam is being prepared directly at Sutnar Faculty next year.

The Audiovisual Department of Ladislav Sutnar Faculty UWB offers studies in animation, photography, media illustration, interactive design, and multimedia. Students have the opportunity to use top-equipped studios, develop their own authorial approach, collaborate across workshops, and create under the guidance of experienced educators and professionals from practice. More at fdu.zcu.cz