Build, playtest, and revise
By Lan Kung, Smith College
We are now on our final stretch as we enter our last few weeks of SIP! It feels as if just yesterday we were in the beginning phases of development and it has been an incredible experience to see our games come together. With most of the features and mechanics implemented, we are now polishing our games and preparing them for the long-awaited publication. All of our teams have been doing an incredible job implementing the tech and art in a cohesive and fun way.
The artists within my own team, Necco, are currently busy refining in-game assets, adding more complex animations, and creating stunning splash arts. Meanwhile, our programmers are tirelessly testing game features (including character movement and an endless mode), fixing bugs, and ensuring the game is compatible on all devices. Despite the tiring work load, seeing everything come so far within the 2 months we’re provided is nothing but rewarding.
Being the Lead Designer for Necco, I have mostly worked on UI/UX Design while developing both my artistic and programming skills. This program has also given me the opportunity to develop soft skills by giving us the environment to practice communicating, giving constructive feedback, and collaborating with a diverse group. Throughout this process, SIP24 has become a tight-knit community of people that support and help each other overcome hurdles with our collective knowledge and skills.
This week SIP was joined by Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science students to playtest our upcoming games. It was a pleasure to see everyone enjoying our games.
If you’re interested in playtesting our games, don’t forget our Demo Night on July 16th in Worcester! All three teams– Necco, Leaf, and O-Pee-Chee – will be present.
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Transforming my game dev future
By Hind Younus, New York University Abu Dhabi
When I started as a freshman in university, I was initially unsure about what I wanted to do with my future. All I knew at the time was that I enjoyed designing and creating things, so I felt that the Interactive Media major would be the best choice for me. Typically, Interactive Media encourages students to express their creativity through a medium of their choosing, whether it be art installations, performances, or digital art. In addition to that, they also teach you essential skills that prepare you well for whichever path you choose by teaching art, design, computer science, and engineering concepts. I often found myself drawn to creating games for my university design projects. My passion for creating games only grew when I took introductory game development courses during my study away semester at my university’s New York campus. There I learnt about the basics of game design concepts and using popular 2D game engines like GameMaker Studio.
This is why I was very excited about the opportunity to participate in this program and meet other like-minded people of similar background who were equally interested in game development. Game development is still a relatively small industry in the United Arab Emirates, so I was eager to come to the United States, where the games industry has been established for decades. So far, I can say ESIP has been an amazing program for me to learn about game development. I really enjoy how hands-on the learning is, and Monty has been a great mentor in helping us navigate our game projects. Something I have often struggled with is defining a realistic scope and coming up with intriguing game metaphors, but learning about tools like the Kanban board and Round Robin has been especially helpful for me. I serve as the role of Lead Artist in my team, which has been fun yet challenging. I have been been honing my skills in how to manage the artists on my team efficiently, communicate with programmers about their technical demands for the art, and take constructive criticism from others.
The game our team has been working on is a match-3 resource collection game currently called ‘Mars Bedouins’. It imagines a world where an Emirati Bedouin family accidentally travels to Mars and the player has to help them survive by matching resources. We chose this idea as we believe it’s the perfect amalgamation of the UAE’s past and future as it links to the UAE’s Emirates Mars Mission while highlighting traditional Emirati Bedouin culture.
Additionally, ESIP offers numerous opportunities to learn from industry professionals through various talks during our time here. Hearing about their journeys into the US game industry has been transformational by allowing me to envision the steps I need to take to pursue this field in the future. Many of the guest speakers were founders of their own game companies, and they provided us with numerous tips on how to successfully build a game development company. A few of my peers and I have been collaborating outside of work to (inshAllah) build a game startup in the UAE. I am extremely pleased with how much I have learned, not only about game development but also about the process of creating a game development startup.
Moreover, an unexpected but pleasant surprise was that we would be working alongside the American SIP students who were two weeks ahead of us in the development of their games. They have been an invaluable source of information, and they were very open to answering questions about their processes and the challenges they faced so that we could better prepare. One of the American SIP teams, which is also developing a match-3 game like my team, has been particularly wonderful in giving my team tips and advice.
Overall, ESIP, MassDigi and most of all, Monty Sharma, have been exceptional in advancing my career in game development. The connections I was able to build, the wealth of knowledge and hands-on experience I gained, and the community of Emirati game developers I’ve been exposed to has been incredibly valuable. All in all, I can’t wait to take what I’ve learned from ESIP and contribute to building the game development industry back home in the UAE.
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Team dynamics & the art of communication
By Yousuf SH Mohammad, Khalifa University
Imagine the following scenario, your team is discussing a hot topic regarding player mechanics/movement for a video game project. After conducting a brainstorm session, the team generates three mechanical concepts; A, B, and C. Let’s say you really like concept (B). What I have witnessed in the past is one of the following ways, someone would word out their “opinion”:
- Concept (B )is absolutely the way to go, as it fits the game’s Vibe the most.
- Concept (B) is great as it’s realistic of what the player could actually do.
- Concept (B) seems to be the most realistic to apply to the player, for reasons X, Y, and Z.
Notice how the first one uses absolutist language, which makes what they say seem to be a fact rather than a discussable opinion. From what I have witnessed in the past, such behavior kills the mood of discussion and either turns the team aggressive against you if they hate the idea, or simply makes them accept it with low motivation to actually apply the concept into the game. Furthermore, notice how there is no clear reasoning behind the first statement, whatever “fits the game’s vibe the most” means.
As for the second one, it adds an extra layer of depth to the reasoning behind choosing such a concept, but it still lacks the details that would make the team actually engage in a fruitful discussion about what would exactly make them agree/disagree with you. What I mean is, the responses you would receive from your team for if you spat out the second statement, would look like something in the lines of: “but what if we applied concept (C) instead, it too looks reasonable”. Notice how their response is equally unfruitful.
As for the third statement on the viability of concept (B); it should be how someone would word out their suggestions. It has all the elements of reasoning that could spin out a fruitful discussion, in case someone disagreed with your reasoning (X, Y, Z). Also, notice how it has a flavor of “elegance” or “etiquette” by using words such as “seems”, or perhaps you can use something similar such as; “appears to me”.
Going back to my experience with ESIP, my team got into an argument trying to decide the art style of our game. One side suggested a specific style, providing reasons such as ease of implementation, compared to the expected level of detail for a background, for a desert themed, endless running game. The other side proposed a different art style on the basis of influence from previous games they played (so it looks “cool”). Won’t get political, but it turns out that the second suggested style, which our team settled on, wasted two weeks of painful, and slow art development, until we realized our mistake, and switched to the more viable, easier to implement art style. If the pushing party had traced back the logic behind their choice, we would have been in a better place art wise. But we are healing, and going strong!
In conclusion, whether concept (B) is actually the best doesn’t matter if the team doesn’t understand the logic behind the acceptance or rejection of such concept. You would find people passionately pushing for an idea just because it sounds/looks cool, without thinking of the consequences of its application. Furthermore, put in mind the added thought of “working for a purpose”, when your team understands why it’s implementing such feature into the project/game.
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Join us on August 1 from 2-4p! Free, fun and open to all!
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Join us on July 24 from noon-2p! Free and open to all!
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Join us on July 16 from 6-8p! Free and open to all!
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The American experience
By Khalifa Al-Mehairi, Zayed University
Coming from the other side of the world as an Emirati and experiencing the different work and study cultures that America has to offer has been a eye opening experience, one that is filled with freedom.
The first few days of learning have been that of a familiar experience back in my country, a lot of presentation slides and paying attention, which in my personal opinion is not my preferred way of learning, at least not for a passion project. Though the way I learn back in college is that of the same. Monty Sharma has been a different spice of a instructor I’ve never encountered before, very very honest, and that’s something I like as at least I know for sure what direction to take that will result in a better outcome.
The Americans in the SIP program with us have been very kind and helpful, they are also a great source of general knowledge for us as we don’t know America as much as they do, alongside that they are many that are talented that we could gain experience from.
The toughest part of the first two weeks was transitioning from the player to the developer mindset, a lot of the ideas that were bounced around in the first week were either too ambitious, of a movie mindset, or simply bad pitches, but as we slowly got into the developer mindset alongside our integration of what would be a valuable and easy to transform game for Mansour, the good ideas started rolling in.
We wished someone a happy birthday, and cut cake, we laughed together and debated, and learned our differences, what we needed to improve as a team and what things we needed to understand from each other to be more understanding. One fault of mine was being stubborn with ideas, which I heard is somewhat common with artists, but as time goes the more I realize there’s always another perspective, and that we should hear things out, let them marinate before we conclude ourselves on what it is.
If there is one thing I can be grateful for it is the people in this program with me. Monty has been a excellent mentor in expanding the horizon for what the correct mindset needs to be, and what we need to be aware of, and other than him are the people in the program, who are all talented and passionate in their own way and who I hope will carve something beautiful for the end.
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Iteration, animation and no procrastination
By Ben Zakharenko, Berklee College of Music ’25
Now several weeks into SIP, all teams across the Northeastern and WPI campuses are now well into the weeds of making their games. By this stage in the development process, the core gameplay for all three games has been established and first builds have been delivered. This foundation has now allowed for our programmers to receive feedback and iterate on their designs, refining mechanics and ensuring smooth functionality. They’re also establishing a regular build schedule, which is crucial for maintaining a steady workflow and ensures frequent playtesting while still hitting our project milestones.
Meanwhile, our artists are putting in significant effort to bring the visual elements of our games to a more polished state. Assets are moving away from the initial programmer art as concept art turns into background designs and animations. Seeing these visual components come to life within each game is quite inspiring!
On the audio front, my role has ramped up considerably, as sound effects, voiceover and music make their way properly into the game. Now that gameplay loops and aesthetics have been thoroughly established, I have been working as fast as possible to nail down the musical systems of all three games I’m working on, not only composing the necessary music cues but also designing their interactive elements in FMOD. However, while my focus this week has been music, I’ve also been working on designing sound effects and other audio assets for the more finalized animations as they come in as well. One of the highlights on that front this week was a voiceover recording session on Tuesday, where several SIP members lent their voices to bring some characters from team Leaf and team Necco’s games to life! The collaboration and enthusiasm during this session was a testament to the passion everyone has for their projects.
Overall, the pace of development is accelerating as we strive to meet our deadlines. Each team is making remarkable progress, and it’s exhilarating to see how our games are evolving from concept to playable experiences. We are all eager to see the final products as our projects
continue to take shape.
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New friends, new builds
By Angie Baird, WPI ‘25
As the WPI and Northeastern teams settled into their weekly routines, a new group of students joined the fray! Traveling all the way from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), talented programmers and artists stepped up to join the program! Going by the very Bostonian names of Baked Beans, Clam Chowder, Lobster, and Maple Syrup, these ESIP teams learned game concepts and then began pitching and refining new ideas.
While SIP and ESIP got acquainted, they exchanged knowledge and insights. Special guest James Spavold, a SIP alumnus and current CTO of Petricore, gave a talk to the programmers about production and system management, while the artists discussed artistic methods and the creative process.
After the UAE teams finish pitching, they will join the SIP teams in forging ahead into the game development process! At the beginning of this week, SIP’s programming teams scrapped their prototype builds and started fresh, harnessing the knowledge they garnered to make better frameworks. With our development plans finalized, my team – Team O-Pee-Chee – established the main systems we would need and established how to best approach them. Doing this upfront helped us understand the scope of our project and how these systems would work together, minimizing potential roadblocks down the road. Additionally, my team’s programmers have formed an organizational system to keep teamwork running smoothly.
On the art side, my team has worked to create a cohesive vision that highlights each artist’s strength. As our game is heavily UI-based, we have focused on the shapes and colors we want to keep consistent to make the game more cohesive. As we move out of the conceptualization stage and into creating in-game assets, we have started setting up an art pipeline that will ensure our game feels balanced and polished.
Overall, we have established strong teamwork and organization while working towards forming the vision of our game. By planning each step, teams have created timelines and epics that they can easily grasp, helping everyone stay on track. Even though the SIP teams might organize themselves slightly differently, they’ve taken their unique dynamics and strengths into account. As teams forge ahead into production, they will utilize what they have learned to help both other SIP teams and the ESIP teams succeed.
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This summer MassDigi is running SIP and ESIP, a special collaboration with Endless Studios and sponsored by Mubadala.
ESIP brings 27 students from several universities in the United Arab Emirates to Worcester where they live on campus at WPI, sharing Emirati culture and experiencing the United States. ESIP mirrors SIP for the most part and collaborates closely with mentors and advisors from E-Line Media and Skymap Games.
And just like SIP, ESIP teams will be developing their titles from scratch and getting them ready to launch by the end of the program. We can’t wait to play their games!
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