Let’s Play Wester Hailes

Let’s Play Wester Hailes

Let’s Play Wester Hailes was a collaboration between community arts organisation WHALE Arts and the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University. The project engaged with young people in Wester Hailes to create and code a series of video games based around the area in which they live. Wester Hailes is a housing scheme on the edge of Edinburgh that has been reported as an area of significant social deprivation. Games companies and young software engineers who work in the gaming industry were invited to share their experiences. 

This celebration of video games introduced young people to the engineering skills required to make great video games. Bringing games professionals together with the audience helped to create opportunities for software engineers to engage with an interested public while simultaneously prompting the audience to consider a career in games development.