I was never really allowed to play video games as a kid. I don't blame my parents, I argue that I have a great immune system now since I spent so much time playing in dirt as a kid (that's how things work, right?). Anyway, I didn't really start playing games on my own until a few years ago. But when I did, I really fell in love with adventure games. They were like movies, but I was in control! The likes of Naughty Dog's games and the Tomb Raider series had me hooked.
Interestingly enough, though I was studying computer programming in school and was doing a lot of work in the entertainment industry, I never wanted to work on games. Too much math, I thought. Ugh, math. But I also needed a tech elective and Intro to Game Programming sounded like an easy enough choice. Fast-forward a year, and I've been taking game programming classes every semester since. The latest is called Advanced Game Project (AGP), a year-long project to work with a team to design and build a 15 minute demo of a game. This is the project I'm working on:
Empath, a virtual reality adventure game that uses simple, martial arts inspired gestures to cast magic spells.
Empath is a story-based VR game, with the final demo taking the player on an adventure of trying to battle their way through mysterious monsters appearing in a town to save their friend.
The journey so far has been an excellent challenge for me as I learn the ins and outs of creating a game with a whole team. Our project has over 30 members on board, working on all different aspects of the game from art to design to engineering. Even with such a large team, the opportunities to learn new concepts and contribute to the game have been tremendous. So far I've worked on enemy's AI, some user interface components, and have spent a significant amount of time working closely with the lead designer to implement and incorporate tutorials, dialogue, and events to lay the building blocks of the narrative.
Not only is this an entertaining project because it's always a fun challenge to make a game (Despite the math! Who knew!), but especially because this game is telling a story in the Virtual Reality space. VR is still a new and budding field, and there are very few games that even tell compelling stories in VR, much less have easy-to-understand gestures. Making a game that tells a story and moves with fluidity, while also not making the player sick or uncomfortable in the headset is a very new topic, and I'm proud to be a part of a team that can make contributions into shaping that.
UPDATE: See and play the game demo on Oculus! Download from itch.io.
(If you play the game, there's a broken, sparking lamp pictured in the area above. I enjoyed learning how to make particle effects to make that lamp shoot sparks!)