Wohhh
ho ho..It’s been less than a week that our classes started and I am already
on a run doing a hell lot of things that I never expected I would do. It’s the end of the first week and I am
left with nothing but assignments, assignments and some more assignments. This
blog is a part of those assignments. I personally feel that this blog is a great idea to
jot down my take on new ideas and to write about the projects that I am going
to work on throughout my studies at the University of Utah! Plus, I know that
this blog will truly help me improve my writing skills. I’ll be writing here
often to track my work and also to make this whole experience just grand!
So basically,
at the U the Game Development program has three tracks- Engineering, Arts and
Production. I am an Engineer and I am going to work on the coding side of the
games. I have three subjects this semester- Game Engineering- I, Game Design-I
and Project-I. Game Engineering-I is mostly about how to write good chunks of
code. Game Design-I is about the history and theory of games. Project-I is
about developing actual games.
My "higher studies" marathon started on Monday
with project class. It was really really amazing the way things progressed. Initially,
the professors gave us a brief idea about the working of the project class.
Here, students have to work in teams to pitch, prototype, and present games
every four weeks, resulting in a better more refined game pitch and prototype. The
professors continued for a while explaining the whole process. After that they ‘eeny,
meeny, miny, mo’-ed us into different groups, each consisting of one or more
engineers, one producer and one artist. Just when everything seemed to be
happening at a breakneck-speed a real client walked into our lab. That’s right.
A real client who had some serious business in mind! It's so freaking amazing right? Just
Super ! Super !
The
client explained us about her company and what she was looking for in a game.
Basically, she works for a cheese company called as “Beehive Cheese Co. Op.” and
she wanted a game to work on the iOS based devices. The criteria for the game
were- first, it should be a short and simple game appealing to the demographics
and second, it should publicize the company’s brand name. By the end of the class, we were left with
one huge task- a game pitch for the client for her company-which we were
supposed to present after a couple of days.
I,
with my co-engineer Kiran and my producer Zeph started working on the game
pitch. Keeping in mind all the criteria, we came up with several ideas for the
game pitch. We then narrowed down to this one idea wherein the game has a
single screen view with one-on-one fight against an opponent. Basically, it’s a
two player game but can be played single player against AI. We worked two complete
days developing the entire picture of the final game, like deciding- different powers the
players will have, the game concept and basically everything that a pitch is
supposed to have. We presented it to the client. The presentation went on
pretty well. This one-pager is what we had presented -
Now we have to develop a full working game out
of the idea we had presented. To do so we have a time period of less than four
weeks. Each one in the group is supposed to work on his expertise to get the
game going. Engineers are supposed to code using MOAI SDK and LUA scripting
language. Finally, after four weeks the
client is going to select the best game out of the pool of games. For now, I am
simply excited and expecting an amazing game from each group. And also, hoping
that I always remain in a healthy competition.
