A WOMAN from Aylesbury has won a top competition to design a video game for the iPhone.
Catherine Forsyth’s team won the first ever UK competition to set up, make and design their own computer games, held at the Gadget Show Live at Birmingham’s NEC.
The 35 year old is a jeweller by trade but joined a video games training course a year ago after deciding to take a career change.
“I started my jewellery company at the beginning of the recession which was a really silly thing to do in a luxury industry and things didn’t go the way I wanted them to,” she said.
“I woke up and decided I didn’t want to do my work bench and that it was the perfect time to change career and do something which I like doing in my spare time.”
Her team took five months to produce The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: Lost Chapters, based on the Fighting Fantasy game-books.
She designed the 2D elements in the game, such as the health bars, buttons and scrolls, but once she has finished her Train2Game course she will also have 3D animation skills.
She said women were becoming increasingly common in the industry.
“As more women come into playing games you need more women to come up with games that women want to play.”
Catherine said she enjoys strategy games such as Sim City and Civilisation – but she admits she doesn’t yet analyse the way they were put together.
“I should start analysing them better. But games to me are are a way of getting away from general life so I try not to analyse them too much.”
As well as winning a holiday to AquaCity resort in Poprad, Slovakia, Catherine said the real prize was the boost to her CV.
“I could not imagine six months ago that I would be where I am now. I thought I would finish my course and try to get a placement or something like that. It is a massive boost, I have had so much coverage and promotion and met so many industry professionals.”
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: Lost Chapters will soon be available to download on the App store. A portion of sales proceeds go to the Prince’s Trust.