Summer Studio Blog: Defying the odds – 6/22/23

Defying the odds

By Ed Greig, Clark U. ‘24

Nobody could’ve predicted how this summer was going to play out, but here we are. We are approaching our third week in the first installment of the MassDigi Summer Studio at Clark – a program very similar to MassDigi SIP but with a smaller group and a tighter deadline. With all of us hailing from the same school, formalities were quick and we got to work fast. Since we have a tighter schedule we only had a few days to concept ideas before turning to a build. Everyone on the team dug deep into their imagination until we found a few pitches that stuck with us such as a nightmare-eating frog and a peaceful Zen garden. We began work on our dirty build which gave way to a new challenge, a hybrid workspace.

One of the unique features of Summer Studio is its hybrid capability. With work commitments and life circumstances, this opportunity allows for some people to be part-time and others to be full-time. I myself would have not been able to join if I couldn’t work remotely and I am very thankful for it. With half our team in Worcester and the other half scattered along the East Coast, coordinating meetings and work schedules is key. Max Xavier, our producer, has done a fantastic job so far of keeping everyone excited to work on the project. Playing a team game after our lunch break is something I look forward to daily.

The game we are trying to create is a hybrid variant of the widely successful “Merge 3” style games such as Merge Dragons, but make a mere decorator where the items you mindlessly swipe together are unlocked for the player to freely decorate with! In our game you heal the world by cultivating bad seeds filled with negative emotions into beautiful creations. You can then make your own zen garden and arrange it to your liking with decorations.

We pushed out a dirty build in just 4 days with the two main systems, the merging and decorating, to show a proof of concept to peers and staff at MassDigi. We received very positive feedback in particular about the theme and message of the game. Team Turkey Leg, as we’re called, wants to make sure everyone knows how important taking care of your mental health is, and we want to convey that message in this game we make over the summer.

As the art lead, my peers have been pushing out work every day and iterating on top of it to get the best finished product in-engine. One of the most important things we have been stressing is to take the time to make the art consistent, we need to make sure we can take inspiration from others and then replicate that in our work.

Tyler Gaughan has been holding it down for game design and has already presented us with a spreadsheet full of the math required to make a mere game function under the hood. He’s also made sure to cross our T’s when it comes to the accurate setting and art of a traditional Zen garden.

Programming has been tearing it up and implementing all of the lofty systems we threw into their hands with Chenxi Gao at the helm. Currently, I believe the merge system is being rebuilt from the ground up as well as the currency system.

I feel like our whole team is ahead of the curve and hungry to succeed, hopefully we can keep it up!