ADAM SINGLE

SAE alumnus Adam Single has been heavily involved in the Brisbane games scene for a number of years now through various projects and ventures, including his role as a coder for 7Bit Hero, a programmer on the tech team at Real Serious Games, co-founder, programmer and co-designer at Sly Budgie, and co-organiser of the Game Technology Brisbane meet up.

What inspired you to enter into the career you’re in?
I don’t remember discovering programming. I don’t remember my childhood particularly well at all, but I do remember after I discovered it. I remember finding QBASIC on the windows 3.1 machines at my high school library. I had been playing games to some degree for years, but I really stood up and noticed when I realised what programming was. That’s when I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. It would end up taking me years to come back around to that, but that’s when I knew.

What are your fondest memories of your time at SAE?
SAE was my second chance. I was 27 when I went back to studying. I had been running cafes and making coffee for years by that point. My brother sent me a link to the SAE website that he had stumbled upon somewhere and my passion to learn to make games came roaring back.

Returning to study was a scary thing though. I was engaged to be married. I hadn’t studied seriously in a very long time and I needed to work a certain amount outside of study to pay the bills. In my second year, my wife and I became pregnant, so that was added to the mix.

Throughout it all, the staff and fellow students were incredibly supportive. They provided an environment that was intense and fast paced, while remaining fun, engaging and relevant. The late night labs with their discussions on code and episodes of Big Bang while we broke for dinner are still some of my fondest memories. I made some fantastic friends in those two years.

Are you able to shed some light on how studying at SAE lead you to where you are now?
SAE was the direct doorway to where I am now. I did my internship at a small startup called Valhalla Studios. At the end of that year, the company split in two and I was offered a full time position with one of those two, Bifrost Studios.

What advice would you give to students aspiring to become successful in their field?
There is only one piece of advice I give people looking to get into this field, make games. Any time you can do it, you should be. Programming, whether games programming or otherwise, requires constant practice to reach a master level. My day job with Real Serious Games is a whole barrage of entirely new programming challenges and lessons. If I’m not asleep, at my day job, or hanging out with my beautiful family, I’m working on a game. Networking is important, sure, but that’ll come naturally. Don’t make it your primary focus.