SERC Student Finley Wins Sentireal Game Development Competition

Sentireal is a software development company based in Belfast who specialise in the creation of software applications using immersive technologies, such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). They have grown rapidly since their inception in 2013 and are considered one of the leading providers of bespoke immersive technology in the UK. 

During a visit to SERC to discuss the industry with SERC Computing students, Sentireal CEO Tom Houston proposed hosting a game development competition at SERC, available to all SERC students and judged by Sentireal. The competing students were tasked with writing a game, and were judged on the game’s strength of concept, quality of coding, the structure, and methodology used in creating the game, with an emphasis on making sure students were developing a game closely in line with how a commercial organisation would develop a game.  

Finley Houston, a student on the Level 3 National Extended Diploma in IT - IT Professional course, was selected as the winner of the competition. Finley comments, “I am so surprised about winning the competition but I'm super happy about it. For winning, Sentireal provided me with a Meta Quest 2 which I am so grateful for as VR games development is something I've wanted to try for a long time but have never had the headset to work on it. However now I have finally gotten the opportunity to start learning. Overall, I am so grateful to Sentireal for providing me with the opportunity to take part in their competition and for the amazing prize.” 

Sentireal CEO Tom Houston comments, “We were very pleasantly surprised at Finley’s level of coding; it was much higher than we would have expected from a student at his stage of education. A lot of credit obviously goes to SERC for the quality of their courses, but Finley also has an exceptional talent. The quality of the code and the level of documentation that went into Finley’s submission is a perfect example of someone who finds something they have a passion for and applies themselves to it. I have no doubt Finley has a bright future ahead in the industry.  

“Northern Ireland has a vibrant community in the games and immersive coding industry, and I see that continuing to grow. Our local Universities and Colleges are turning out graduates of an incredible quality and that is continuing to feed the demand of companies such as Sentireal. We do not outsource any development overseas, all our developers are local people who are full time, permanent employees of Sentireal. I do not see that changing, especially with talents such as Finley coming through.” 

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