Strength and honor
By Grace Barrett-Snyder, senior, Smith College
Our team was two weeks into development when we were met with confused faces of playtesters. It was then we realized we had revisit the drawing board, as reluctant as were. You see, the game we were making here during MassDiGI’s SIP16 was too complex and lacked direction. Distracting visual elements overwhelmed our players, and the goal wasn’t simple enough to explain without a tutorial. Even worse, we didn’t have decent comps (comparables) or a target audience. Everything needed to change.
Our original concept was a rapid decision-based game about gladiators, where you play as the emperor and decide who wins or dies to please the audience. When we tested our prototype, players didn’t like the timed decisions, as the mechanic lacked real consequence and the “right” choice was not clearly communicated. With this feedback, we concluded that the premise we were tasked with was ultimately what held us back.
Before I tell you where we’re going next, let me tell you about us! While our title is still up in the air, we just call ourselves the Gladiator Team (you can identify us by who uses Ryver the most). There are 7 of us: 3 programmers, 3 artists, and 1 audio designer. The programmers are PJ Keenan and Anthony Popp, both from Becker College, and myself. Coding our prototypes coincided with turning to each other and saying “Guys, I promise I can write better code than this.” Mariel Rodriguez from RISD, Sofia Syjuco from Carnegie Mellon, and Catherine Litvaitis from RPI make up our art team. Their ability to deliver numerous high-quality assets is unreal (the gifs are a sweet bonus). Sofia, also our producer, rocks the Kanban board and has a real voice in leadership. And finally, Joe Marchuk (who you’ll probably hear about a lot on this blog) is our sound designer from Berklee College of Music. The compositions he writes blow everyone away, and somehow he does it without musical references from the rest of the team (whoops).
The Gladiator Team
The first couple days were easy for us, but the rosy glow began to fade (as MassDiGI’s Monty Sharma warned us). We needed to work together and faced some problems trying to do so. Growing pains, let’s call them. But we learned. In fact, we’re still learning. So by no means are we perfect, but we’ve developed better understanding of each other’s work-styles and methods of communicating in a respectful and honest way.
Now… where are we going from here? Well, we conducted thorough playtests yesterday and had a long design meeting this morning. We decided to center our new mechanics around a roster system, now approaching the project with a fantasy football perspective. Players seemed to really respond positively to the day-old prototype that explored this idea, instantly picking favorites among the new gladiators, who were each accompanied by combat stats, a name, and flavor text. We really want to encourage these relationships moving forward.
The Gladiator Team is heading back into the alpha stage stronger than ever. Now with clear direction, let’s keep up the momentum. Get excited for the next build!
» Read More
Starting off strong
By Sarah Spiers, senior, Emerson College
Orientation seems so distant now that we are starting the third week of the program. At the start of MassDiGI’s Summer Innovation Program, the interns were ushered into a lecture hall and met Monty Sharma, Tim Loew, and Walt Yarbrough. We talked about game business, production, and some marketing. Between these discussions, we were grouped together several times a day to learn how to create game ideas and pitch them to the rest of the participants. We quickly learned how to get into the mindset of creating games that sell rather than pitching vague what-ifs.
Team Campaigious hard at work.
The next week we were divided onto our teams. Monty announced producers and team members assigned themselves various roles. I was named producer and voted lead designer for a political game, which is affectionately (and temporarily) called Campaigious.
The Campaigious team is comprised of incredibly talented and dedicated artists and programmers. Liz Lanahan from RISD and Erica Lyons from Becker College, the artists, have pumped out more assets and backgrounds than I thought possible. The programmers, Ian Clinkenbeard from Becker, Fandi Charifa from NYU, and Conor Canavan from LYIT have gone above and beyond what is expected of them. Currently we are struggling to choose between a more strategic route or a fast-paced clicker. Regardless, we hope to release the game at the end of the program, and if we keep up the momentum, I’m sure we can.
By the end of week two, all teams had blazed through their concept and prototype phases and started production. We had some mentors visit and had a couple of demo sessions. We also had many, many meetings discussing ways to keep up our energy, make smart decisions, and prevent us from falling too far behind in production.
Looking forward, we have several demos coming up in June and I think everyone is excited to start showing off our games to the public. Until then, we’ll keep moving along!
» Read More
SIP16 team selected
By Tim Loew, executive director, MassDiGI
Applications to our annual Summer Innovation Program (SIP) have grown year after year in terms of quality, quantity, geographic reach and diversity. This year we received applications from 216 undergraduate and graduate students representing 66 colleges and universities from around the world – making it our most competitive year yet.
Choosing only 24 was a daunting task. After much conversation, the committee selected a talented group. This summer’s SIP16 teams will be made up of interns from 15 institutions including Becker College, Berklee College of Music, Carnegie Mellon University, Emerson College, Hampshire College, Letterkenny Institute of Technology (Ireland), NYU, Northeastern University, RPI, RISD, Rochester Institute of Technology, Smith College, Tufts University, Wheaton College (MA) and WPI.
SIP16 begins on May 17 and concludes on August 5. Over those 11+ weeks, with guidance from professional staff and industry mentors, SIP16 teams will be responsible for all the work necessary to successfully launch their games. There is no internship program like it in the country.
As in previous years, SIP16 students will receive housing courtesy of Becker College as well as a modest stipend. Most importantly they will all receive the greatest game development experience of their lives. Yes, it may be a lot of work – but it’s also a lot of fun. We can’t wait to get going.
*updated 5/6/16
» Read More
“Whether it’s the Starship Enterprise or the Millennium Falcon, many of us have long dreamt of piloting a spaceship.
Now, thanks to a team of college students, that dream can now become a reality — or more like a virtual reality nightmare.
“Intern Astronaut,” created by Broken Door Studio, a five-student team from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, won the grand prize at the fifth annual Massachusetts Digital Games Institute Game Challenge pitch contest held over the weekend.”
Read the full story here in the Boston Globe.
» Read More
Official Press Release:
Virtual reality game Intern Astronaut takes grand prize in fifth annual MassDiGI Game Challenge pitch contest
Above: L to R – Broken Door Studio’s Kedong Ma, Yingying Chen, Shane Stenson, Sean Halloran, Jake Hawes and MassDiGI’s Monty Sharma
Cambridge, MA – February 29, 2016 – Intern Astronaut by Broken Door Studio, a team of students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), won the grand prize in the fifth annual Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (MassDiGI) Game Challenge pitch contest this weekend.
Intern Astronaut is a virtual reality game that takes on-the-job training to new heights. Made for Gear VR, Intern Astronaut is an immersive and funny game that enrolls the player as an intern tasked to fly a spaceship.
Taking on the role of an untrained intern in the game, players must watch their spaceship’s monitors for urgent instructions from mission control on what to do to keep their ship flying. Any instruction completed incorrectly or not quickly enough will damage their ship until their internship ends with them stranded in space! Every time players start the game their ship is equipped with different control panels and they are given new instructions on how to pilot it, ensuring that every playthrough is as challenging as the first day on the job.
- View the Intern Astronaut trailer here
Broken Door Studio, which also won the College Beta/Near Release category, is made up of Sean Halloran, Yingying Chen, Shane Stenson, Kedong Ma and Jake Hawes. The game will be released for Gear VR in late spring 2016.
“Our team is thrilled to have won the Game Challenge. It was a great event for all of us,” said Sean Halloran, the team’s programmer. “We got terrific feedback from so many amazing mentors and judges. We learned so much. Everyone making games should go to it.”
The MassDiGI Game Challenge helps indie, startup and student game developers and entrepreneurs shape their ideas and products for launch. This year 35 teams from across the northeast competed in front of a packed room at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center in Kendall Square.
Since the MassDiGI Game Challenge began five years ago, over 175 different teams from around New England and beyond have pitched games and taken home prizes valued at over $100,000. Top past winners include titles such as PWN, Catlateral Damage, Depression Quest, Pathogen, Wobbles and Starlot Derby.
Above: L to R – Competitor Chaima Jemmali meets with mentor Wizdy’s Nikita Virani
The annual event is a showcase for the expanding game development cluster in the region. Over the event’s two days, dozens of game industry veterans served as speakers, mentors and judges.
As the Grand Prize and College Beta/Near Release Category winner Broken Door Studio won cash, legal services from Greenberg Traurig, computer hardware and game merchandise valued at over $7,500.
“This year’s contest was the closest competition ever,” said Monty Sharma, managing director of MassDiGI, “We were really impressed by the teams, their creativity and skills. Each year we see improvements in the games and in their market potential.”
Other top winners include Worcester-based Zephyr Workshop which won the People’s Choice Award as well as the Indie Demo/Alpha Category for Florafiora, a game they are making in collaboration with Mob Made Games of Cambridge.
“Winning not only our category but the People’s Choice Award is rewarding and humbling,” said Breeze Grigas, Zephyr Workshop’s Co-Founder and Designer. “We’ve been coming to the Game Challenge for five years, each time we get better and this year it really paid off for Florafiora.”
Florafiora is a single-player experience where you help planetoid-dwelling “Seedizens” explore and expand their tiny universe, meeting other cultures and keeping everyone happy and productive.
“With so many exciting games from indies and students in the competition, it was a challenge to make a decision,” said Caroline Murphy, CEO of the Boston Festival of Indie Games, one of the contest’s judges. “To me, just entering the MassDiGI Game Challenge shows a commitment to creating games that speaks to success.”
The other top Indie winner was Jig Time which won top honors in the Beta/Near Release Category. Jig Time is a fun, new photo-sharing app – like Snapchat but with more game elements – that allows users to exchange their images in the form of interactive jigsaw puzzles.
I++, another team of WPI students, won the Serious Game Category with Chinmoku, a mystery game which seeks to teach the player hiragana, one of the Japanese writing systems, through immersive gameplay.
Serious Game Category runner-up honors went to EduSaga, a team from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, with their eponymous Chinese language-learning detective game.
Heist Night, made by yet another team of WPI students, won the College Demo/Alpha Category.
Winning the High School Category was PolyThief made by Nostradingus, a team of students from Millbury (MA) Memorial Jr./Sr. High School.
“We met these students three years ago. Since then their teacher has given them encouragement and brought them to the Game Challenge each year. The students have learned from mentors and from each other how to build an award-winning game,” said Sharma. “It’s great to see.”
Runner-up in the High School Category from Westborough High School was Hoksy with Shelter Shock.
Other Category Runner-up honors went to:
- Indie Demo/Alpha: Petricore Games with Traveling Merchant
- Indie Beta/Near Release: Copper Frog Games with Tattoo! A Game of Ink
- College Demo/Alpha: Omnitone Games from Becker College with HotWired
- College Beta/Near Release: French Frogs from Becker with Make Bonds Now and Jeremy Slavitz from Tufts University with Metamorphic
Honorable Mentions were given to:
- Indie Demo/Alpha: BareHand with Big Boi Little Boi
- College Demo/Alpha: MOTU from Fitchburg State University, Revolver: Rebound from WPI, Convergence from Becker and The Experiment from the Five College Consortium
- College Beta/Near Release: Lily Leap from Becker
Indie and College Category winners also received prizes including cash and legal services from Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton valued at $1,000. The event is supported by MassDiGI’s annual sponsors and hosted by Microsoft New England Research & Development.
+++
About the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (MassDiGI)
MassDiGI is the statewide center for entrepreneurship, academic cooperation and economic development across the games ecosystem. MassDiGI’s many programs and activities support business growth and enhance the talent pipeline between higher education and the game industry.
For more information about MassDiGI, please visit massdigi.org or follow them on Twitter @mass_digi.
» Read More
