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ON GAME

Dillon Remuck, left, and Arielle Johnson are two members of the student team behind the game “Caligo,” which debuted the Clark booth at PAX East.

CLARK UNIVERSITY

Clark students unveil game inspired by WAM’s armory collection at PAX East

Veer Mudambi Worcester Magazine | USA TODAY NETWORK

Fans of action-adventure games may have a new release to look forward to this summer: Priceless artifacts have been stolen from a museum collection and it’s up to a security guard to travel across time and space to get them back. Players will take part in the epic historical battles from which the items originate in a history-spanning hack ’n’ slash. A playable demo was unveiled last weekend at PAX East in Boston — the biggest video game convention on the East Coast. h The developer? Greenlight Studios at Clark University’s Becker School of Design and Technology. Moreover, the historical pieces in question are part of the Higgins Armory collection at Worcester Art Museum. h The Becker School of Design and Technology was established at Clark University as a place for Becker College students to call home, after the college closed due to budgetary constraints impacted by COVID-19. Becker College students were welcomed at Clark and the signature programs of video game design and development became part of the new school, including one where student teams design and develop games that are then shown at PAX East.

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experience not only to raise awareness but because it is important to the curriculum and a way for students to show off their work. “Becker probably has the record as the longest continuing booth there and this year about 40 students will participate.”

Jack Freni, fifth-year senior from Becker, is a Game Production and Management major, and produced the action game, “Higgins Armory.” He visited PAX East in 2011 and 2013 as a kid and to be there with a game of his own “feels surreal — like things have come full circle.” Freni hopes that the “Higgins Armory” game can be a portfolio piece when pursuing a career at an AAA studio.

The “Higgins Armory” game has technically been in development for two years since the Worcester Art Museum approached Becker about showcasing pieces from the Higgins Armory collection.

“The game incorporates weapons and armor and you can use items from the actual collection along with descriptions of when they were used, and levels in the game are based on historical battles,” explained Freni. The game started off with components of two genres — strategy and action — but he recounted how they combined those into one game and decided this past year after working in person at the studio that they wanted to change the direction on how it should be played.

COVID-19 had also deeply impacted game design work, he said. “Going digital at the start of the pandemic and then finding out that Becker was closing affected the quality of our whole project.” He explained that the team had considered the game to be nearly complete, but because they were working together virtually, only a certain number of people could actually play the prototype. With only a limited number of testers, “we didn’t really understand how good or bad some of the stuff was coming out.”

Returning in-person, they realized how much work there was to be done

“As a consumer of games, I now understand the pros of actually being in person at the studio.” Now it’s an action adventure hack n slash which was redesigned in the past two semesters.

“It was stressful but ended up being worth it — the game is fun and still represents the Higgins Armory, which really likes the game despite the change in direction.” The game is slated for a late spring/early summer release date.

Terrasa Ulm, Professor of Practice, described the partner project with Worcester Art Museum and its Higgins collection as “a really interesting piece that, we thought, would benefit from some wider attention.”

Ulm explained the process of how students submit multiple versions of their entry and she works with them through it.

Freni acknowledged the importance of being open to adapting a project.

“Last semester, we literally sat down and said to ourselves that our game doesn’t feel as fun as we thought it was, so we redesigned it in 15 minutes and then we pitched the changes the next semester and it ended up being great,” he said.

That’s how he learned how to work with a big team and discovered that he was more organized and was able to break down a complex problem. “Follow your heart — cliché as that sounds — be open to new ideas and opportunities,” he said. “I’ve tried art, I’ve tried programming and design. I like all of them and all are needed to make a game, but I’ve found my best role as a producer. That was me listening to my gut.”

The convention itself changes a little each year, according to Amanda Theinert, director of the MFA Program and Assistant Professor. “Obviously, it’s bigger — the year before COVID was the biggest on record. Thursday and Fridays are usually great networking days whereas Saturday and Sunday are hectic with shopping and gaming.”

She said that despite all the changes the students have gone through in the last couple of years with the virtual work during the pandemic and the closing of Becker, “it’s the best our program has been and I’m excited to talk with potential students.”

Having the best game design program on campus has a way of attracting students. Dillon Remuck, a freshman at Clark, had no aspirations to do game design and started solely as a comp-sci major, but when he heard about the new Becker classes last semester, he tried them out. Now, he is planning to double major in comp-sci and game design.

“Game Design almost doesn’t feel like a class, it’s almost a hobby. We have a three-hour class once a week but it honestly goes by quicker than my one-hour comp-sci class,” he said.

He remembered how daunting it was to be the only freshman and how it took a few weeks to get comfortable asking questions, but he is probably taking the class again in the Spring.

Remuck and Johnson pose for a photo with fellow Clark students, some of whom are cosplaying as video games characters, at the PAX East event last weekend. CLARK UNIVERSITY

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“I look forward to going all four years to PAX East with our games and taking every opportunity to get the ones we’ve produced out there. Very, very excited, but a little nervous.”

The game Remuck’s team worked on, “Caligo,” can be described as video games charades — a two-player game where they communicate an image to one another using non-verbal communication, like symbols sent from one player to another. “The goal is to see how far we could go and how creative we could be in a game where players just interact with symbols and don’t see each other.”

Arielle Johnson, sophomore from Becker, works in User Experience and Interface Design. Along with Remuck, she was on the team that took “Caligo” to PAX East.

“’Caligo,’ in particular, has been a great team work based game. You can only rely on the symbols that you and your partner are sending to each other,” she said.

Johnson completed one semester at Becker before it was closed and is now at Clark. Game design classes were part of her major and she signed up for game studios each year. “The studio class has definitely piqued my interest with game development, though I love all sorts of design — apps, websites and games — and it’s been a really fun experience and introduced me to amazing people. This is my first PAX and I am super excited.”

The “Caligo” team was not too sure how the audience would react.

“We’re really trying to get more testing and broader feedback at PAX,” said Johnson, “to find out what an audience likes and doesn’t like and make the design even better.” The challenge of trying to get everything ready for PAX has been enormous and “unfortunately, we weren’t able to do everything we wanted to do before the PAX deadline, so polish isn’t up to the standard we would want.”

Cotnoir emphasized that this time last year, no one knew what was going to happen. “We brought 200 students from Becker to Clark and to keep these students together with faculty and be at PAX East without missing a beat, it took about three months.”

He chuckled to say that If someone had told him this time last year that they would be back this year with the program this strong, he would have said, “How?”

Second-year graduate student in the Masters of Fine Arts Program at the Becker School, Sebastian Schindler has been to PAX East with a number of different projects in the past, but this was the first time that he went under the aegis of an institution.

“Simply by being an institution, Clark gives a lot of advantages to students to develop and share their game projects.” He is the lead programmer for a physics based multiplayer party game called “Upheaval,” with full controller support across all platforms, which will be available on Steam by the end of the month.

This project is tied to his thesis paper in which he shows that using social gaming can improve communication and help communities overall. The goal is to show the impact of how people who may not have much in common can be unified through the power of gaming, as they establish common ground quickly.

“Imagine you’re playing a game of dodgeball but instead of throwing a ball on a field, you’re in a lumber mill, a bowling alley, restaurant — and can throw any time you like at other players, throw objects at as many people as possible to be the last one standing,” Schindler said, describing the project he is working on. The idea is that people will see that, laugh at it and share memories of the time someone threw a car at them.

He has been completely focused on quality assessment and a final polish to get a stable version of the game ready for the end of the academic year. “We have features that we wanted to put in but because we don’t have all the time in the world, we ended up having to not include them — example being AI allowing for single player experience.”

Theinert said that a number of schools treat PAX East as a recruitment fair. “However, lots of students aren’t there to be recruited, they’re there to play games.”

Cotnoir agreed. “We often have students get job offers and it is a great networking experience but it’s also a great place where we meet our alumni.”

Ulm explained that alumni stop by and “it’s like a bit of a reunion, we try to coordinate and leave messages at the sign-in,” especially since Clark has been reaching out to Becker alumni.

Remuck viewed it as a good experience to navigate and network. “The game is something I put time into and enjoyed creating so I enjoy pitching it to people. It’s not like a topic that I can’t talk about.”

Freni was also planning the same. “During those times that we’re not presenting, I want to meet with industry professionals.” Networking and jobs are important to all the students, most of whom would love to work in the gaming industry, which in 2020, generated $155 billion in revenue and by 2025, is predicted to reach more than $260 billion.

Ulm said going to PAX East serves as not only a learning opportunity for the students but a source of inspiration.

“It’s nice for students to be there and think, this could be my game, how do I get my game there?”

Dillon Remuck tests out his team’s game, “Caligo,” at PAX East. CLARK UNIVERSITY