Day 2: electric boogaloo

The day was a welcomed slow day. After a breakfast at the hotel where the language barrier nearly left me soy-milk-less, we met up with our professor friend who showed us around town. I loved touring the area around Paderborn; I saw so many cool buildings and carvings and areas that I would love to 3D model, so I took a lot of pictures to add to my reference library. Although, looking back through the pictures it’s obvious that I like the industrial look, so I’ve got a lot of construction sites peppered in with old buildings and pretty parks.
After that we went exploring the bus station to get tickets and took the bus over to the university. We toured the facilities and got to see the games lab the students work in. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Comparatively, it was lacking in the decorations and posters that our labs had, though their seats were much more comfortable.
Once formal introductions were done we got to spend time with the students and see what they’re working on and what games they’ve made in the past. To be honest, I was kind of blown away at how polished and innovative all their past games were. I feel like compared to us, they had really solid, viable products and we just had… school projects. I don’t know what makes us different, but I was a little intimidated by how creative and knowledgeable they were. I still had a really good time talking to them about their processes and what programs they use and how they did the things we saw in the game. Everyone seemed to get sucked into their current project, Q; a lot of time was spent just watching the American students playing this game that had an amazing concept and an even more amazing execution. It was the exact kind of game Alex plays, so he had a really good time. Secretly I was disappointed to leave.
We also went over to the mall near the university to pick up supplies. I expected there to be more English then there was, so I was stumbling through trying to order food and read labels. I did get a happy cat mug that changes with heat at the GameStop. 🙂
I miss my cat so much, but meeting the German students has been such a great experience so far.