Category Archives: Game Education
Virtual Reality Is In Play At The Los Angeles Film School Game Fair
Each month the Los Angeles Film School’s Game Production program holds a Game Fair to showcase the games our students are developing in their classes. Throughout the month of June I taught Game Design Project 1, which is an upper-division course where students work together in teams to design and create a prototype of a game that they will complete in Game Design Project 2. Both of the student teams in my class had decided to work on virtual reality projects, and I was so impressed with what they accomplished in just four weeks that I just had to also showcase them in my blog post for this week.
Confined
Confined is a survival-horror game for players who are interested in the development of VR. Resource management and good shooting skills are vital to your survival. Since you are going to experience the game from your own perspective it will really add to the immersion and threat of the game, and unlike Resident Evil 7 that had a VR function, Confined will be designed for VR rather than have it as a side feature. Now I ask you is being trapped underground really the worst thing to happen or is not knowing if you are alone down there worse?
For their Game Fair prototype, I gave the team a goal of implementing their flashlight mechanic for navigating through a dark, spooky lab and at least one puzzle to solve. The puzzle they created took the form of a room littered with books, and the player had to find the one book that was out of the ordinary. That book turned out to be the only book that remained on a bookshelf that could only be found by searching though the room with a flashlight before its batteries ran out. When the player picked up the book with their virtual hand, a secret door would open, allowing the player to escape.
The players at Game Fair reported that this environment perfectly captured the right mood for a scary, horror game. This mood was enhanced by the darkness and limited view through the virtual reality headset. However, the avatar movement needed some work, because the player avatar would teleport short distances instead of walk and often would teleport right though the bookcase they were trying to reach. But all in all, they were very excited about this game and saw its potential.
Development team:
- Eric Castillo (Project Manager, Lead Designer, Programmer)
- Will Mackey (Game Designer, Level Designer)
- Vlad Altshuler (Co-Programmer, Lead Audio, Game Designer)
- Jared Delatorre (Lead Level Designer, Marketer)
- Jesus Soto (Lead Programmer, Level Designer, Mascot)
- Anthony Reese (Lead Artist)
Eyes Wide Open
Eyes Now Open is a action packed level based first person VR shooter with a focus on tactical high intensity combat. Fight with anything you can get your hands on as you run and gun attempting to escape three levels of a secret super-soldier facility called Blackgrove. You play as Finley, the only patient to survive the Treatment, altering your genetic make up allowing you to posses super human abilities called Meta-Upgrades. Use these abilities to alter time, electricity, plasma and electromagnetic energy to destroy the ones who took not only your mind but the one you cared for the most, your wife.
I gave this team the goal of implementing one of the Meta-Upgrades and a situation where that special ability would be useful. The team created a level in which the player started by choosing a gun from among an arsenal of weapons and then travel across the level to reach the exit. As the player went into the main hallway, a horde of enemies would spawn into the far end and rush toward the player. There were too many to kill with any of the weapons, unless the player activated the Alter Time Meta-Upgrade, which slowed down the enemies sufficiently to shoot them all.
Everyone who played this at Game Fair found the controls easy to use and the action to be exciting. However, not understanding this was only a prototype to test the mechanics, they did complain about the enemies being unfinished models. They all enjoyed the immersion brought by the virtual reality headset, although several reported a slight feeling of motion sickness. When I played the game, I too found it both to be a thrilling experience but felt a bit queasy when turning. This is something the team will look into solving for the second month of the game’s development.
Development team:
- Jack Sabato (Project Manager / Lead Modeler / Assistant Texture Artist / Lead Writer)
- Hassan Wansa (Assistant Project Manager / Lead Programmer / Lead GUI)
- Brandon Deniz (Creative Director / Lead Level Designer / Assistant Modeler / Lead Texture Artist )
- Desmon Jernigan (Video Editor / Lead Story / Lead Dialog / Assistant Programmer / Lead Lighting Supervisor)
- Jeremy Garrett (Business Manager / Lead Sound / Assistant Modeler / Assistant Artist)
At our next Game Fair, which is about five weeks away, I’ll take a second look at these games to see how they progressed.
Spaceships, Robots, and Zombies at the USC GamePipe Lab Spring 17 Showcase
Last Wednesday I attended the University of Southern California’s GamePipe Lab’s semi-annual Showcase held at the Egg Building just outside the university’s Los Angeles campus, and as always I was impressed by the exceptional work of some of the best and brightest game development students in the country.
For USC Viterbi School of Engineering Professor Mike Zyda and his students in the USC Games program, the Spring 2017 Showcase event is an opportunity to show off a school year’s worth of collaboration, creativity and computer design. It’s also the students’ introduction to a host of industry scouts who may purchase and publish the games, as well as hire program graduates to design, program, and produce the games of the future. I make an effort to attend Showcase every six months to help me set aspirations for my own students at The Los Angeles Film School.
There were so many great games to play, that it is a shame that there was only time for me to play two.
Arkology
Arkology is a virtual reality real-time strategy game developed as part of virtual reality research at the University of Southern California. The player controls the game using motion control. At first I had difficulty understanding how to move the units using my virtual reality “hands”, but one I learned to stop over-thinking user interface, I realized how intuitive and simple the controls actually were.
From the Operations Room in the heart of the Ark, the player must strategize, command, and lead his forces to preserve what may be the last of humanity. As soon as the player becomes familiar with the controls, the enemy begins to attack, The player is then forced to activate the experimental warp drive to preserve the Ark, but with the premature activation of experimental tech, the player and the crew of the Ark find themselves in uncharted space.
I found that I really enjoyed how virtual reality immersed me in what was a cross between a board game and a real-time strategy game. Developed by a six-person team led by Powen Yao, this is a game that I would pick up just to show off my virtual reality gear.
BoltCraft
BoltCraft is a cooperative, wave-based, third-person action game where players are members of the Bolton Collective in a fight for a desolated Earth’s resources against the planet’s robotic overlords. Developed by an 11-person team lead by Maison Lietzke and Martha Monica with artistic collaboration with the Laguna College of Art & Design., BoltCraft allows players to customize their robot’s abilities and appearance and deploy helpful minions to defend themselves and their team against an onslaught of enemies.
Unfortunately I didn’t get any screenshots of this game, so you’ll have to take my word fo it that I had fun maneuvering my robot through an urban environment and selecting different abilities and fortification to defend my area against the overlords attempting to take control of it.
As always, the creativity and technical prowess of the USC Games students was impressive, and it was exciting to see how these kids are bending our reality to create a new gaming future.
David Mullich 