Did you know we have a studio in Nova Scotia, Canada? It’s located in picturesque Mahone Bay and it’s where our Tools and Tech team are based. A couple of years ago the Hutch Canada team sat down to talk about which charities they’d like to support. They wanted to focus on something that would benefit the local community, and the local YMCA turned out to be the perfect fit. Here’s Devin, our Tools Lead to talk about the partnership.

Tell us a bit more about your local YMCA.

The YMCA runs a Youth Centre for kids ages 11-18 and hosts a variety of weekly events, workshops. They also operate as a drop-in centre to provide young people with a place to hang out and play games (including video games!). We thought this was the best place to put our support behind and hopefully inspire some future game developers!

What has Hutch done in 2021 for the YMCA?

We’ve had a lot of ideas on how to get involved, however the everlasting pandemic has caused us to be a bit selective in what we’ve taken part in. However, every year an organization here called Digital Nova Scotia (www.digitalnovascotia.com) holds Digital Discovery camps in the summer. These camps give local companies a chance to put on events for kids. We chose to take part last year, and held a session about video games and video game development.

We had the opportunity to take the kids through a little presentation about ourselves, our history in game development and Hutch in general. After that little presentation, and a tonne of questions from very enthusiastic participants, we took them through a game from the Hutch back catalogue, Hot Wheels Race Off! This gave us a chance to talk about the different types of roles and areas of game development, but with something fun to look at :)

What impact do you think it’s had on the young people who took part?

The games industry is very unique in terms of how many different types of people come together to create something that can be enjoyed by, potentially, millions. Producers, programmers, 2D/3D artists, animators, designers, testers, IT folk and so many more others behind the scenes that work together. For those watching the presentation, it was a chance for them to see all the different types of roles and gives them some insight into how they might fit into things, if they wanted to!

What are the benefits to Hutchies?

I honestly believe that people like to give back to the communities they live and work in. I think that people volunteer for a number of reasons, and everyone gets something different out of it.

For me, personally, it is about being able to talk to young people about the LOCAL opportunities that are available in tech. I can still remember being in first year university and finding out that there was a video game developer in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, that I didn’t have a clue about and it had been around for three years. Three years! I grew up 40 minutes from this place and had no idea it existed, or that it was an industry I could get into without having to move to Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal.

So I think that’s a big part of it, especially these days and post COVID-19, there are a lot of opportunities in game development and the tech industry in general that allow you to work remotely and still enjoy the beauty of this province.

3 words to describe this partnership...

Fun, innovative, inspiring

What next?

As restrictions start to ease up we’re having discussions with the YMCA about various ways that we can contribute. While nothing is set in stone yet we hope to participate again in their Summer Digital Camps, and hopefully some other things throughout the year.