Well You're In Luck!
If you haven't been caught up with MonRiverGames projects, there are several projects the studio is actively working on. While the summer session let Lightkeeper be for now, we did work on Spy Cats Remastered, Purple House, and WV Quest.
During our online showcase, held on September 5, the progress discussed on Spy Cats Remastered was major mission 1 bug fixes, getting the game launchable from Steam, and even working on grey boxing on new material for the game to expand. Who doesn't like challenges and customization? Well Spy Cats is getting these features as well as new levels to play through, with customization as a possibility.
Here's a link to Wishlist Spy Cats on Steam now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2484980/Spy_Cats/
On the other side of things, Purple House switched development platforms from Construct to the Unity Game Engine. Instead of being web-based, the decision was also made to convert the concept to a mobile game. Much discussion and testing in Unity occurred in the summer on how it would be different and still keep its core 'game feel'.
WVQuest, which started in 2021-2022 as a CSEE 480 capstone student collaboration with the West Virginia State Museum, was also worked on. In 2022-2023 a new batch of CSEE 480 capstone student took over the project with its museum collaboration, and requested MonRiverGames' mentorship. After this group finalized their latest build for the school year, the summer 2023 community group decided to focus on the project as a whole and prepare it for the 2023-2024 capstone group. Intense documentation of the museum and its existing educational resources was completed as well as preparations to organize the material. In short, this is an augmented reality app features information from the museum while scanning QR Codes and engages the player with supplementary mini games and quests with relative content to the exhibit they are looking at. West Virginia State Museum continues to be a wonderful partner in the project and everyone involved can't wait until it's able to be publicly launched.
As a whole, the studio made several structural changes in order to facilitate its collaborations better and make the onboarding process smoother. First, it started implementing an "Agile/Scrum" lite method of task management. Second, it developed a studio focused software development guide, with introductory material, along with a quiz to verify new members' understanding of how the studio operates. This was an effort to get new members into projects as quickly as possible, while learning what's necessary, as that's where the fun of making games takes over. Additionally, an effort was started in researching additional publishing outlets outside of itch.io, where most of the studio's work is currently published. Development and publishing accounts were created with Google Play and Steam, with little issue. Xbox/Microsoft publishing continues to be in progress, while Nintendo Switch and Playstation are unlikely at this time.
The Summer Session studio members, at the end of the showcase, announced their excitement for various aspects of collaboration with game related programs at West Virginia University this 2023-2024 school year. The biggest news from this is the size of the collaboration and who is participating on all projects: 16 MDIA/Game Design and Interactive Media Capstone Students, 12 CSEE 480 Capstone Students, and 8 community members. It's going to be a very busy school year!
Watch the full showcase here:
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