Professor Wessman’s trip to China was actually a bit providential. In 2001 he was the developer of a board wargame about a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan early in the 21st century. In 2006 he discovered that a Chinese company had republished the game. Thus it seems only natural that he was able to travel to China in person.
The game conference at JAI ended with a symposium of all the game development professionals and faculty where they discussed a variety of issues relevant to making games and teaching students how to make games. After this experience in China, Professor Wessman was reaffirmed of his teaching strategies. “The conference reinforced the message I’ve been giving students about the increasingly connected world out there. The global economy is increasingly intertwined, and game development is more and more often going to involve international cooperation and collaboration,”
Professor Wessman was in China for a little over a week and had time to create some great relationships with the gaming faculty at Jilin Animation Institute. He is hopeful in the future of creating a student/teacher exchange program with UAT, as well as joint projects with JAI students and faculty.
Along with his regular class load, Professor Wessman is also engaged in a variety of gaming projects with current students and UAT alumni. He is working on gaming projects like Aquaphobia, Tellus; Save the Earth and Palio. He is also a part of developing technical documentation and tutorials on making custom mods for the StarCraft 2 Editor Support Guide.
To become one of Professor Wessman’s Game Design students, check out: http://majors.uat.edu/
