Wednesday, after resting up from our fairy-tale like adventures in Eltville, we ventured out to visit the Nintendo and Crytek studios in Frankfurt. While I am not able to share the finer details of my trip to these studios, I will share what I believe I am allowed to.
The first studio that we went to go visit was the Nintendo studio in Frankfurt. We boarded a train that took us relatively close to the studio itself, and then walked the final short distance to the business plaza the Nintendo building is located in.
While at this studio we learned that it isn’t focused on developing the games, as most if not all of the Nintendo game development is done in Japan, but this branch manages marketing as well as the publishing and legal aspects of getting Nintendo games in Europe, and more specifically in some cases in Germany. From then on we discussed more aspects of the processes involved with what this branch does in Europe, and some of the experiences that those that worked there had.
From then on, we went to a room where we were allowed to take pictures in, and this room contained many (if not all) of the games and consoles Nintendo had published and created, many of which were setup and ready to be played.
After spending some time in this room playing video games and competing in a few impromptu Super Smash Brothers matches (where I learned I cannot play Bayonetta to save my life), we then left this office building and made our way over to the Crytek studio building on the other side of Frankfurt.
At Crytek, we were given a presentation by our gracious host on getting into the games industry and some of the various positions one might expect to fill while getting a job in games. After that, we were given a demonstration on how to use different elements of Cryengine, and how some of the different tools in the engine work together. There was a big emphasis during this presentation on the visual scripting tools built into the engine, and the various game development roles that could utilize these tools for building different aspects of a game. After that, we were split into groups, one which got to play one of Crytek’s latest games “The Climb” which is a VR climbing game, and the other group got a tour around the office. After the first group finished the tour, the two groups swapped so that everyone got to see how the studio was laid out, and gome some brief glimpses of what was going on around the studio. After the tours were complete, we ended our journey around the Crytek studio, and began our journey back to the hotel.
Soon after getting back to the Hotel, we set out once again but this time in search of dinner. We decided on getting Ramen at a place a bit far away from the hotel called “Ramen Jun”. Over the course of the day I had gained a significant hunger, as did many of my other fellow students. To quench this hunger, Alex and I decided to order Large portions for our ramen bowls. This resulted in the two of us receiving bowls of ramen that were bigger than our heads. While I did manage to finish my bowl of ramen, it was definitely a challenge (a delicious one at that). After finishing up our Ramen, we all went back to the hotel where we ended the day to rest up for the next one.