Micky Orchard - Portfolio Website
Warner Bros Discovery Access X Rocksteady Studios Game Academy - 2022
I was one of 20 selected participants for this programme, where I was mentored and taught by industry professionals on games QA and games business. I also worked on a live brief with other participants from Art, Audio and Game Design disciplines, where we worked together to make a game pitch presentation and playable demo, which we presented to WBD & Rocksteady. This provided the chance to further hone my QA skills and knowledge through Zoom classes and practical work, whilst also having the chance to work in a team with people from different creative disciplines on a game project. The QA classes focused on using Jira, creating test suites and bug reports, identifying and analysing bugs, and how testing fits into the production pipeline. Our live project group had weekly scrum meetings where we discussed what we did that week and what needed to be done next to reach our goal, whilst keeping a record of these tasks and other meeting notes through Notion. I contributed by managing/assigning project tasks through Jira Kanban, creating risk assessments, creating and executing test plans/suites, and regularly checking our project met the brief we were given as well as further market, audience and gameplay research. More information about the programme can be found here.
Gayming Magazine's DIGIPRIDE Queer Art Exhibition - 2020
I was featured as one of the artists in Gayming Magazine's 2020 DIGIPRIDE Queer Art Online Exhibition. In the article I talked about the kind of work I enjoy making as well as my main source of inspiration in indie games and some of my key role models, like Eric Barone. The article itself can be read here:
Adobe UK & Ireland Championship Finalist - 2019
As a result of scoring 39/40 on my Adobe Photoshop Accreditation exam, I was invited to take part in the Adobe UK & Ireland Championship Finals in London in 2019. Everyone who took part was given a pre-decided brief to design a leaflet for a charity organisation that makes prosthetic limbs for children. I did not win, but the event itself was a lot of fun and a very interesting experience. The pictures below were taken from the events Facebook page here:
University of Portsmouth Graduate End of Year Show - 2019
These are photos of my show space in the 2019 University of Portsmouth graduate show. For my final year at university I worked on making a demo for a pixel art strategy game demo, inspired by games like Fire Emblem and XCOM. For the project I designed a diverse cast of characters with superpowers and a fictional world for the game to take place in which is troubled by conflict and discrimination. The demo featured 3 grid based strategy levels and 12 controllable characters, which involved moving allies across a grid to defeat enemies. The trailer for the final outcome can be seen here:
No Facebook? OMG Exhibition - 2015
In 2015 during my time at college, I worked with the Ashcroft Arts Centre and Westbury Manor Museum in Fareham to design and put on an exhibition that explored the relationship between technology and teenagers since the 1960s. I helped plan the exhibition alongside other local students and staff from the Ashcroft Arts Centre and also built an arcade cabinet with wood and put games myself and other students had made on a computer in it for visitors to play. The exhibition was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The pictures below are of the opening night of the exhibition which was opened by the Mayor of Fareham. Extra information on the exhibition can be found on the Heritage Fund's webpage, which can be found here:
