Category Archives: Internships

Students have many opportunities for internships up here in Montreal. Here are their stories.

The Internship Chronicles – Ryan Place

By Ryan Place (GDES ’19)

I worked at Tuque Games, a small game development studio situated in Montreal. Tuque is just coming off the heels of releasing their first original game, Livelock back in 2016. With the success of Livelock, the team has decided to amp up production and dive into a much more ambitious and exciting new unannounced project.

During my time with Tuque I worked under the Lead Designer Kevin Neibert and the rest of the design team on their latest unannounced project. The majority of the work I did for the team dealt primarily with player experience. In the early days of my internship I was mostly on bug testing duty while I familiarized myself with the game and its mechanics. Over time my role shifted away from specifically bug testing and more toward player experience design (though with a bit of bug testing). Continue reading →

The Internship Chronicles – Cyrus Burris

By Cyrus Burris (GPMG ’19)

During the Spring semester of my junior year in Montreal, I was afforded the opportunity to serve as a Production Intern at a game studio called LuckyHammers. LuckyHammers was originally founded in 2004 as a company called “Fidel,” but eventually rebranded to the current name after being acquired by the Stolo holding company. Throughout its existence, LuckyHammers has worked with many different relevant brands and properties, but has more recently focused on VR projects, and digital versions of tabletop games for PC and mobile. Continue reading →

The Internship Chronicles – Calum Phillips

By Calum Phillips (EGPR ’19)

I spent two semesters in Montreal, and staying here was was a great choice. I got to go on more company visits, get taught by a Ubisoft employee, and more relevantly, I got to take another internship. This semester I got to work at a company called Pixelz, on a game titled Cefore, a demolition puzzle game (that’s also available now on Steam Early Access). My main function for most of the internship was creating a system that records GIFs of gameplay and gives the user the ability to upload them to Imgur and share them on Reddit and Twitter. Continue reading →

The Internship Chronicles – Ben Cortijo

By Ben Cortijo (GDES ’19)

I worked at Edoki Academy, a well-oiled machine which churns out multiple games a year while maintaining their main product: Montessori Preschool. Montessori Preschool is a subscription-based service which provides over 10,000 users with a plethora of mini-games designed to teach children in ways they’ll find fun and interesting. With this, users can learn the basics of math, English/French, Mandarin, and practical applications such as taking care of a pet. Along with this, anyone who subscribes to the service is also given access to all of the company’s other games. These other games range from beginner programming skills in Code Karts to gardening in Montessori Nature. Edoki has a catalog of over twenty-five games each of which has their own teaching point and helps teach children basic problem-solving.  While interning there I filled many roles for the company, the primary one being a translator for the company’s emails. Creating English versions of their PDFs for their subscribers who do not speak French. This is what I did for the majority of my time at the company, but it was by far the most lenient duty I had. By which I mean that unlike many of the other jobs I had done this one had no real constrictions, and thus I was able to express my creativity in the formatting. Continue reading →

The Internship Chronicles – Sophia Penna

By Sophia Penna (GDDM ’19)

Over the course of my time studying at the Champlain Montreal Campus I  held an internship at Rank Media Agency as their graphic design intern. Rank first opened their doors in 2009 and has grown to an international scale. As a design agency they work with their clients helping them to grow their businesses, through creative design and custom marketing strategies based on their goals. Rank works with their clients to build upon their brand through an integrated approach where creativity meets technology. The staff is welcoming, helpful, and in constant communication.

At Rank I was able to build upon the knowledge I had learned from my prior studies. I was assigned daily tasks that were later critiqued by my supervisor, Ryan. He would then review my designs with me and go through any revisions he recommended and why. Through the company chat channel, Slack, we would often send links to resources, files, and even color swatches when working on projects. Any clarifying questions could be easily answered through this chat system. This portal was used throughout the office to keep the interns in the loop of any office plans and activities. The design team has their own closed group as a way to communicate interesting websites to draw inspiration from as well as to arrange creative meetings. Continue reading →

The Internship Chronicles: Lizzy Hammond

Elisabeth Hammond (PWRT ’19) – Game Writer at Tuque Games

Working out the logistics of an internship was a long and arduous process for me that in volved many emails that mostly inquired whether or not it fit into my academic plan. Caught in the odd position of “not really a game designer,” but at the same time searching for a, more or less, game design internship, alongside having switched into the Professional Writing major my sophomore year of college, and thus having to double down on classes, I wasn’t sure if I was afraid of not being able to graduate on time or if I was afraid of not having the experience game companies so often seek from freshly minted graduates.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to worry about either.

Not only did an internship fit snugly into my academic plan so that I’d graduate within four years, but I was taken on not as a game designer, but as a game writer at Tuque Games. It seemed almost too good to be true, and I spent my winter break excitedly waiting to return to Montreal for a second semester and to see what my internship had in store for me. Continue reading →

The Internship Chronicles: Kyle Mays

By Kyle Mays (California Lutheran University ’18)

When it comes to what my goals in life have been, the opportunities I’ve found often presented themselves to me in ways I wouldn’t have particularly chosen. In that way, I have chosen to take that as a lesson to be more excited for the times in my life that I didn’t plan for: Where things don’t go according to plan, and seeing how I am able to get to the same place I was going from where I ended up, or for finding a new place to go to with what I learned. For better or worse, I feel like this way I learn a greater amount about the world and myself. With all the highs and lows unexpected experiences that stem from the mystery of the unplanned unknown might bring me to, it all leads to me being whoever I become, wherever it ends up leaving me. I’ve accepted this as an inherent good aspect of life, even if it takes for some struggles to find the good it brought me. Continue reading →

The Internship Chronicles: Conor & Amanda

By Conor Tully (GDES ’19) & Amanda Gates (GDES ’19)

“Congratulations on becoming International Arms Dealers!” our new boss, Ryan, hollered as we came in for an initiation breakfast during the first week. With a little piece of context, this excitement makes a bit more sense.

As a company, IronBelly Studios makes most of their profit off of weapon assets for the Unreal Marketplace and Unity Asset Store. Their weapons have been used in a variety of popular games, such as Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, otherwise known as PUBG. Additionally, they cover other client based requests related to development, 2D and 3D art, level design, user interfaces, and virtual reality. Continue reading →

The Internship Chronicles: Anna Steeley

By Anna Steeley (FILM ’19)

This semester I interned at Eyesteelfilm, a documentary based production company in Montreal. The company was founded through making films with the homeless community and founded by Mila Aung-Thwin. Eyesteel creates a diverse range of documentaries such as Manic about a woman who sets out to find the truth about her father or A Note’s Ark, about Kiribati, where a community within the island must evacuate their homes due to extreme climate change.

Continue reading →

23 Reasons to Study Abroad in Montreal

By Amanda Gates (GDES ’19)

[Throughout the Spring ’18 semester, Social Media Ambassador Amanda has explored Montreal and its many hidden corners. Here she gives her best reasons as to why students should consider coming up here with the Champlain Abroad program]

1. New way of living

College dorms can be boring. Picture this instead: hotel-style rooms, kitchens, and freedom. Continue reading →