GAME WIZARDS CREATE VIRTUAL MAGIC WITH THEIR

FIRST PROJECT “MAGE’S MAYHEM”

The Art Institute of California-Los Angeles Student Work

Honored by Industry Professionals

Santa Monica, CA: “Mage’s Mayhem”, is a new Unreal Tournament 2003 Mod, created by The Art Institute of California-Los Angeles’s first video game production team, the “Game Wizards”.

The Game Wizards, began their exploration into the exciting world of creating video games in the Fall quarter of 2003. The production team classes in the Media Arts and Animation department, had proved very successful in providing students with real hands-on experience in the production process. So when the Game Art and Design students started to get farther along in their programs, they demanded a production team of their own, and so the Game Wizards was born. It was decided that the class would actually begin as a club in the Summer of 2003, so that the team could organize, decide on an engine, a game concept and even start the pre-production process. The team is lead by Assistant Department Chair, Eric T. Elder (King of the Hill), instructor and lead texture artist at Luxoflux, Nick Marks (True Crime: Streets of L.A.), and instructor and 3D Studio Max expert Andy Clayton (Introduction to Level Design for PC Games). The instructors and several dedicated students gave up their Saturdays to start planning this very exciting evolution in video game education. After researching accessible game engines, it became apparent that Epic Games’ Unreal Tournament 2003 engine would be the best solution. The next step was to decide on a game. “We want to do something in contrast to aliens and soldiers firing weapons,” said Eric T. Elder,” so we came up with this idea of dueling wizards.” The pipeline and production process for creating their game was developed.

The Art Institute of California-Los Angeles is one of The Art Institutes with 30 education institutions located throughout North America, providing an important source of design, media arts, fashion and culinary professionals. The parent company of The Art Institutes, Education Management Corporation is among the largest providers of private post-secondary education in North America, based on student enrollment and revenue. Student enrollment exceeded 58,000 as of fall 2003. EDMC has 66 primary campus locations in 24 states and two Canadian provinces. EDMC's education institutions offer a broad range of academic programs concentrated in the media arts, design, fashion, culinary arts, behavioral sciences, health sciences, education, information technology and business fields, culminating in the award of associate's through doctoral degrees. EDMC has provided career-oriented education for over 40 years, and its education institutions have more than 150,000 alumni.