Tucked among a sea of indie gamers, Pokemon duels and Smash Bros. competitions, Griffon Schumacher was seated at an exhibitor table — empty but for an outward-facing tablet loaded with a game for passers-by to play — working on his homework.
Schumacher was debuting a product he and three others created during a 72-hour video game-making competition that was part of this . During the festival, other college students and recent graduates demonstrated their work as part of the student game showcase.
“I may as well try to get some stuff done in the moments in between,” said Schumacher, a 19-year-old sophomore studying game design at the University of Denver.
Students and graduates represented other local schools, too, including the University of Colorado at Boulder, CU at Colorado Springs and Warren Occupation Technical Center in Lakewood. But there were also young people whose work grew out of the University of Southern California and the Academy of Interactive Entertainment Seattle.
This was the first time Schumacher attended something such as DreamHack, a giant three-day e-sports expo at the National Western Complex that let players challenge each other in popular mainstay games, such as Smash Brothers, and smaller, independent games.
“It is terribly stressful. There are too many people here,” he said. “It’s fun and nerve-wracking at the same time.”
Some of the games that students created were developed in a flurry of 24-72 hours. They needed some polishing and some bugs worked out. Other people had spent large portions of their college careers working on a game and were now adding the final touches.
Students were looking for feedback on what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes it’s important to see how new eyes approach the game. For multiplayer games, the gold standard was when friends began insulting one another.
“It’s fun to have four dudes just playing the game,” said Adrian Chavez, art director of Grunka Munka Games, a gaming studio developed by students from the Academy of Interactive Entertainment. “‘Oh, this is fun,’ and then you start punching each other.”
Interested in learning more about the games? Here are four of them:
Designer: Project Bunker, a team of four DU students, including Schumacher.
Four people created the game from a weekend challenge called “Apocalypse.” In this game, the player uses tools, such as a shovel and bombs, to keep CIA agents out of their bunker.
Designers: Justin Chin, a CU-Boulder graduate student, and Roldan Melcon, a self-taught programmer.
The two, who developed the game during a 24-hour hackathon at CU-Boulder, and have since worked to perfect it. One of the problems with virtual reality is that players are often isolated from their friends. These two set about changing that. One person plays a first-person shooting game with the VR headset. Their friends can log onto a web browser and join the game from a third-person perspective. As they watch their friend run around, they can drag and drop items into the game to help.
Designer: Grunka Munka, from the Academy of Interactive Entertainment Seattle
The game, which can be played by up to four people, is described by creators as a mix of spaceship sumo wrestling and Tony Hawk grinding. Players drive hover devices and try to grind and jump around the screen, marking the rail with color as they go. The goal is to cover the most rail.
Designer: Faffinabout, a company created by recent USC graduates
The game is a beautiful 2-D puzzle where a player creates paths of light using photography-inspired mechanics. The goal is to find a lost pen pal who went missing while on vacation. A miniature flying robot acts as a helpful guide.
