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Printer-Friendly ModeMore than just a game
Members of the Association of Computing Machinery at SVSU build a video game from the ground up - in their spare time
October 29, 2007 —
Students are taking their love of video games one step further.
SVSU's chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery, an international organization dedicated to the profession and science of computing, is creating a video game with hopes of distributing it in November 2008.
The project is still getting started, but ACM members have a plan for what they want to do.
As of now, the setting is ancient and Hellenistic Egypt. Players will control four heroes in explorative quests to gain the favor of four Egyptian gods - one god per hero - and visit several different environments, like the Great Library and the desert.
ACM President Michael Klamerus said the basic idea was conceived largely through word of mouth and an unofficial survey about video games. He said that something similar to Diablo, a role-playing series based on the battle between good and evil, is what ACM's project is based on.
Project Producer/Engine Architect Mark White said that ACM would try to do a more formal-type survey to find out what the best setting and storyline is for the target audience.
Computer science students aren't the only ones involved in the project.
"Our project is geared for somewhere between a total of 15 to 60 students, over half of that being somewhere in the arts between music, graphic design, and English," White said. "We got about 25 of that. We've got seven really good people who we know are going to be here all the way through.
"We are hunting in those other departments for functional ego maniacs," he continued. "Somebody who knows that if they only get it 90 percent their way, but it finishes, that they are still going to get a great job when they graduate."
Producing a video game requires individuals with all kinds of skills. According to White, ACM is constantly looking for people to help out.
For example: "We need an art director, someone who's able to do the concept art, set the look and feel of the way that things are suppose to look," White said.
While art students are needed to design 3-D models and 2-D textures, others still are needed to advertise, sell, write, compose music for, program, and test the game.
White said working on a demanding multi-disciplinary project like a video game provides valuable experience for a student in any field.
"It's because they end up spending more time learning more deeply the portions of the field they are interested in," White said. "Also, they learn all the soft skills that we don't have time to teach in classes of how does somebody with a strong science background talk to somebody with a liberal arts background and actually get something done."
"Overall this is a project to make the University look good, make our students look good and give those things for their portfolios," White said.
"At SVSU's level or better there are several schools that have programs or a track in it or specific courses in it, but nobody who's doing it actually as a big project that's across campus," he continued.
"We're actually basing a lot of this on Carnegie Mellon University's master's program, except for at a much lower scale because our students aren't just doing this and they don't already have a bachelor's degree in whichever field they are in."
According to White, gaming projects like this usually have hundreds of people working on it, while this project is estimated to work with 15 to 60 people.
Games require not only a lot of people needed to develop, but a lot of money as well.
Which makes it all the more impressive that the students working on this project are doing it on their own time with their own computers.
White said that ACM members have been very careful about reading user license agreements to make sure that they can legally use software on their project.
Due to the use of open-source programs and the students working on their own time on their own computers, no funding is currently needed for the project. But money is still needed when the project hits the duplication stage.
Concerning the funding issue, the group has taken a couple different factors into consideration.
If they choose to go the grant route, they wouldn't be able to sell the game. If they go the non-grant route, they will have the option to sell the game in places like the bookstore.
Intellectual property issues and the legality of the programs and other stuff they have used on the project is also being taken into consideration.
Funding discussions will take place later on in the project's development. But for right now, ACM is still looking for students to help get their project off the ground. Game meetings are on Thursdays at 5 p.m. in Science East 145.