Can you imagine a video game that is based on college? Thanks to a new club that has been created at Augustana an Augustna themed roleplaying game may soon be reality. The video game development club was proposed by Professor Mischa Hooker from the classics department who is now the clubs faculty adviser.
Professor Hooker explains that “the new club adds the possibility for students to get concrete, hands-on experience working to increase their skills and aptitudes in a particular area of great interest for many — ultimately, resume-suitable experience. It is a chance to get involved planning and bringing to fruition large scale cooperative / interdisciplinary projects that they can be proud of and that will further show off their developing skills. It should be a lot of fun for the students involved, and will also showcase the kinds of things that Augie students can accomplish together, especially given the fact that many students are excited about and involved in video games for their own entertainment.”
Nicole Tennison, a first year in the group agrees, and explains that there is so much that goes into the actual development of a game– from creative writing, art, sound development, and programming and that many people with many different talents are needed. Tennison’s words to fellow students when it comes to joining video game development club is “do it—it’s amazing. It’s a great group of people.”
The idea for the video game development club came about when Professor Hooker “had been working on a video game project to support students learning Latin and talked to some students who showed interest in that kind of thing” including current president of the club Blake Erquiaga. Professor Hooker says that “it seemed natural for me to volunteer to facilitate things simply because the impetus for creating such a group had come out of my conversations with some of my own students.”
Future hopes for the game development club in the coming years would “be holding guest lectures on topics of interest, probably training programs or sessions to initiate new students into how to use game engines and asset creation techniques. I can imagine that they would coordinate with faculty offerings in related subjects, perhaps even to create / promote a class in video game design. This could certainly also end up with something more ambitious, like the Edge center, creating projects for clients outside campus or educational games within campus.”
According to Professor Hooker, several other faculty members are interested in supporting this brand new student group “including Kelvin Mason whom gave a talk to the group about his own experience working to create game assets before coming to Augustana.”
Getting off to a good start, President Blake Erquiaga expresses that the club is in the midst of planning several video game tournaments to increase other student’s awareness of the club at Augustana and draw in potential members. The events will also serve as fund raisers. The video game development club meets on Wednesday nights to discuss the overall project, and members work in small groups during the week on different parts of the development process. Currently, video game development club is making an Augustan themed roleplaying game which will include familiar obstacles such as the Library and the Slough.