TRUE, there’s no “I” in “team”. But there are three in “industrial action”, and those suckers will come back to kick you in the rear if you don’t respect their rights as individuals.

Teamwork is a buzzword that hasn’t lost its sting since the days when a mobile phone used up your baggage allowance on that smoke-filled trip to head office. And it’s fair to say we’ve probably all felt its wrath at one point or its brother. Application forms, interviews, selection panels: it’s virtually impossible to secure gainful employment without explaining more than once how that three-day stint as the back-end of a panto horse has made you a much-improved shoe salesman. I’m guessing un-gainful employers focus more on the lone wolf side of one’s personality.

Of course, with several years of civil service, a misguided university education and at least five games of Pictionary behind me, I’ve been press-ganged into ridiculous teams as much as the next person – as long as the next person was once enlisted to Pan’s People. As a person of limited social skills, and even less clue how to use them, the threat of mandatory collaboration sent my stress levels, Great Glass Elevator-style, through the ceiling. No matter my position, from captaincy to cannon fodder, the weight of dependence upon these fragile scapulae was too much to bear, and I more often than not brought the pyramid crashing to its geometric doom.

Now happily self-employed, the only co-operative skills I normally need are those that help me find the organically grown Jaffa cakes in those socially responsible aisles but, as part of my continued recovery, I make sure to jump in a ship with companions as often as their ignorance of my naval failings allows.

Recently though, I found myself soul-high in team spirit without a proton-pack to my name. And it wouldn’t have been such a shock to my system had my system been prepared for the shock. But the prospect of visiting a games-developing company in the city of jam, jute and now JavaScript didn’t exactly ring me on the party line.

By now, I’m sure you’re well aware of my limitations as a somewhat modern Millie. It’s really not my fault; I’m WiFi-intolerant and just can’t seem to fit my bustle in those new-fangled elevators. But, I admit, I do have some dealings with bits and PCs. You see, I live with a technophile. I should add, we’re married; he’s not just an IT guy who likes my chilli con carne. Fine, I couldn’t identify a byte from its dental records, but I’m not completely immune to Moore’s Law. So, when I turned up in Dundee, armed with my bondage-themed board game, I guess I probably should have known better – or at least less worse. Although I’ll stand by Tiddly-kinks until Hasbro step up.

Hyper Luminal Games is a by-product of Abertay University’s Professional Masters in Games Development course; the primary product being the smaller font on degree certificates. As part of the Scottish Centre for Excellence in Computer Games Education, the qualification not only has the longest postal address in the country’s mainland, but boasts the accolade of being named one of Europe’s best games-based courses. 

Stuart Martin, Hyper Luminal’s managing director and Keeper of the Keys, met me in Abertay’s main reception, which was just as well since I’d forgotten to bring an unravelling jumper to find my way back. Along with three of his former course-mates, Stuart founded the games company in 2014, after throwing their mortar boards in the air, gathering them back up because they were rented, then heading up the stairs to take root in the university’s business development rooms, where they set up a base that burns like a furnace but emits just as much kinetic energy.

The fledgling company have since developed games for business clients, for educational institutions, and, of course, for fun, and I was along for the day to watch the magic happen – and maybe learn a few tricks of my own.

The first thing I noticed, and unnecessarily pointed out, was the obvious gender bias that almost sent my anode current to zero. Apparently though, it’s still an enduring trend in the field, and one that Stuart and his co-founders would happily buck, given the chance. Women clearly play games but somehow tend not to follow a career in making them, which is unfathomable since, as I was soon to find out, there’s a whole world of disciplines involved in games developing and I refuse to believe it’s still a man’s.

Across a pair of top-floor offices, the four directors and their two colleagues spend their days – and often nights – devising, planning and creating works of design that, to the untrained eye could be architectural masterpieces or cartoon fripperies. In fact, they’re often a bit of both.

So, how many games were the industrious bunch focussing their efforts on that day?

Well, for the most part, one. And it’s not a shameless continuation of the student lifestyle; in fact, it’s very much what puts “professional” into the Professional Masters qualification, since it’s exactly the process by which the industry operates. As Elliot, Hyper Luminal’s programmer, explained, there are barely a handful of folk who can successfully develop a game from concept to console on their own, and those few are considered the rock stars of the community. Teams is where it’s at in games development. As each product, quite literally at times, grows arms and legs from inception, through character and narrative development to completion, it passes through the capable hands of all of the guys. And that’s exactly the journey I was to take for my afternoon of games developing – only without the man-handling, I’ll admit.

First, Games Designer Fraser talked me through how an idea is formulated and researched, while I marvelled at his examples of level design – how he had taken elements that the others had built for their new game, Igknight, and combined them into assault courses for the intrepid Round Tabler on screen. In-game puzzles and ornate obstacle courses all pour from his inventive head and feed into this flow of progress around the organisation, which I was soon to be mirroring, but without the programmed panache.

For too short a time, I cluttered up Sam’s desk space, my peckish eyes feasting on the 2D artist’s work-stream. From sketches on the only medium that I understood that day – glorious paper and pencil – through scanning, colouring, shading and styling to an illustration of their little knight that could only be described as Bors the Adorable. From there he and I galloped across the room to where Rob, the 3D Artist, would bring the knight to life and me almost to tears with sheer cuteness – that which he instils in the character, of course.

Then I got my chance to do some real damage, as next-in-line Elliot taught me how to input code that would cause medieval canisters to whizz across the screen. Pressing the buttons and watching as a miniature world bent to my will was oddly fulfilling, but no more so than when Elliot politely asked permission to use my line of code in the game. Take that, Shigeru Miyamoto.

Finally, I visited Kenny somewhere on the banks of virtual reality: a fantasy technology with actual potential, the fore of which Hyper Luminal are hoping to front. Not being great at actual reality, I figured this might be my chance to shine, but after the time it took the ever-patient programmer to teach me how to find the start button, I realised my light wasn’t hidden under an animated bushel, after all.

It’s fair to say I won’t be taking the games industry by storm any time soon. Even in clement weather, it’s probably a little beyond my capabilities. That’s the thing about games developing though: on your own, you’re unlikely to make a dent in its defences. But surround yourself with the strength of talented colleagues, and you might just knock a hole in that firewall.