Design and build a playable video game from scratch in just three days? It might seem like an impossible quest, but Grand Canyon University students completed that quest and more this weekend at the second annual Arizona Game Cup.
A team of students from two of GCU’s colleges – the College of Arts and Media and the College of Engineering and Technology – placed first in the competition, receiving a gold cup and cash prize. They competed against six other higher-education institutions, delivering their playable game and pitching it to industry professionals on Sunday at the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Arizona.
The students represented the Bachelor of Arts in Game Design, offered by CAM, which concentrates on the creative and front-end side of game creation, such as storytelling, level design and systems design. They also represented the Bachelor of Science in Game Development, offered by CET, which focuses on the technical side of making games, from game engine architecture to artificial intelligence and multiplayer networking.
“I was incredibly proud to watch our students collaborate, problem-solve, support one another and keep their team morale high as they raced against the clock,” said Jorge Portillo, CAM assistant professor of game design and digital design.
“ … Our game design program is only 1 year old, and I could not be prouder of what our students have already accomplished. Seeing their work recognized by universities across Arizona and industry professionals is an incredible milestone for our growing program.”
The Arizona Game Cup, sponsored by Unity Technologies, featured a mash-up theme, which requires teams to incorporate three themes into a cohesive game experience. The themes included 10-second game, factory reset and no place like home.
GCU’s team, Jamin’ Lopes, developed NOMAD, an exploration-based puzzle game centered on memories, regret, relationships and personal connection. Players search through memories of their regrets while trapped in limbo. To resolve the memories, players must discover and transport items between different dreamscapes.
Players are limited to 10 seconds within each dreamscape. In that time, players must quickly explore, interact with the environment and accomplish their objective before being transported back to a bedroom.
To incorporate the factory reset theme, students included a recurring door that resets each time the player enters it, creating a clean slate and introducing a new memory or regret. One visit might lead to a party, another a lonely apartment. Each reset reveals a different piece of the character’s past.
To fulfill the third theme requirement, the game explores how relationships ultimately shape our understanding of home, since home in the game isn’t necessarily a physical space.
The competition concluded with the presentation of the game to a panel of industry judges and mentors representing E-Line Media, Evil Trout Games and Unity.
Co-captain Ysabelle Trinidad, a computer science senior, said, “It was two nights' worth of endless coding. Two of our friends came to the competition to support us, bringing us food, drinks and medicine to keep us going.”
Fellow computer science student Jacob Napoles said that the competition tested his creativity. He ventured into creating, recording and editing music and audio assets.
Those were areas he hadn’t quite experimented with before, like he had during the competition, which also included teams from Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, the University of Advancing Technology, Pima Community College and Chandler-Gilbert Community College.
“This was an adventurous time for me,” Napoles said. “I am super proud of what I was able to create with the assistance of my teammates.”
Those teammates also included captain and computer science senior Alberto Felix Castro, game development student Isaiah Carr and game design students Brody Williams and Alondra Salgado Salgado.
Portillo said the event gave students the opportunity to apply their skills beyond the classroom while working under real production constraints. They also tested their collaboration skills across disciplines.
What was also exciting, added Portillio, is how GCU is helping build Arizona’s growing game development industry.
“Events like the Arizona Game Cup allow our students to collaborate, compete, network with industry professionals, learn from one another and build relationships across universities," Portillo said.
“As gamers, we naturally love to compete, but at the end of the weekend, this event was really about uniting Arizona’s next generation of game developers.”
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