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Drury students travel to St. Louis to participate in game creation competition

Drury students travel to St. Louis to participate in game creation competition

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On January 26, 11 students took a trip to the University of Missouri in St. Louis to spend 48 hours honing their game creation skills at Global Game Jam.

Global Game Jam is the world’s largest game creation event to take place in a physical location, and Drury University’s Math and Computer Science Club jumped on the opportunity to get real-world game development experience.

 

The theme for this year’s conference was “transmission,” which gave participants a lot of room for creativity. Each group took a very different approach.

Games created after 48 hours of hard work

Freshman Sarah Lester joined a team as a programmer and artist. “Transmission could be anything from transmission of viruses, a lot of people went that route, to transmission of messages and music. We made a game called ‘Cannibal Café.’ The transmission part was the transmission of heat and food,” she explained.

“Cannibal Cafe” serves up some delicious ingredients

Lester explained that her group’s game was inspired by an online cooking game. “The idea was that humanity had gotten to the point where we were eating each other in this post-apocalyptic world, so we figured ‘Why not make a business out of it?’,” she said.

Sophomore Ben High had a new experience working as a developer. “I didn’t have a lot of game-making experience, I’m a software engineering major. My team really showed me the ropes of game development,” he said.

“Steamwave Frequency” in action

High’s group created a game called “Steamwave Frequency,” taking a different direction with the theme. “Our game was a quad-directional shooting game with a steampunk style where you control an airship to destroy radio towers. A 12-year old actually did all the art, he was awesome to work with,” he said.

The 12-year old was not even the youngest developer at the conference. “There was one game made by an eight-year-old girl who created an RPG. I only caught the tail-end of her presentation but it was adorable. As a whole, Game Jam is very diverse,” High said.

A rigorous and valuable opportunity

Senior Dane Wommack enjoyed the real-world benefits of an event like Global Game Jam. “I would one day like to have my own game-development company. Creating a game, in general, is a lot of work. It looks great on a resume.”

Game developers hard at work on their masterpieces

Wommack’s team made great use of the optional diversifiers offered by Global Game Jam. Diversifiers add additional restrictions in order to create a challenge or make your game stand out. Some diversifiers are practical – they encourage students to make the game more accessible to disabled persons. Other diversifiers are ridiculous, such as the one that Wommack’s team decided to showcase.

The lead instrument for “DJ Pain Away” was an Otamatone, a Japanese singing toy shaped like an eighth note. As the musician for his team, Wommack shared his experience with this strange instrument.

“The tones are made by placing your finger on the neck to create a pitch, and opening his mouth increases volume. I had the idea to make an Otamatone choir and layer the sounds. It was a lot of fun, but very challenging,” Wommack said.

The conference was a huge opportunity for Drury students to learn new skills, build team dynamics, and make networking connections. The students hope to make the trip to St. Louis an annual event and want anyone interested in the event to join the Math and Computer Science Club to develop their own masterpiece.

All games created at the event can be found and played at stlgamejam.com

Article written by Delilah Gadd

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