Summer Session Wrap-Up

Art by Madison Roy

Our Summer session has just wrapped up and we wanted to show off a few highlights from our active projects and the studio as a whole. Even with our lighter roster this session, there was a great deal of work accomplished:

Chumps Chained

The Chumps Chained team spent this Summer primarily concepting and polishing things up for this upcoming Fall session. For their concepting, they began to layout and design a new level for the game which takes place in a warehouse that Walter and Jellybean end up in after the events of the first level. For the city level they have already completed, they added visual polish with new set-dressing details, background NPCs, and animated setting assets to bring the game’s world to life. For more information about Chumps Chained visit here. 

Warehouse Level Background Art

NPC Created for Chumps Chained

Derby 

The Derby team has been focused on implementing new UI elements for their main and settings menus as well as the player’s in-game HUD. Toward the end of the session, they began work on ways to implement a more dynamic map for the player to explore as they defeat more enemies and spend greater amounts of time alive. For more information about Derby visit here.

New Main Menu for Derby

GDIM Compilation Arcade

For our GDIM Compilation Arcade, the team was able to implement a new overlay so that the games look like they are being played on an arcade cabinet. Menus were added to display controls for the games they have already implemented into the project. Also, two new games have been added to the project. For more information about the GDIM Compilation Arcade visit here.

Social Work Simulator

In collaboration with Play Higher at WVU, Roundtable Learning, and the Higher Education Policy Commission, Social Work Simulator is now publicly available in the Meta VR app store. This project was made with the hard work of Game Design and Interactive Media student Brodey Cook mentored with Teaching Associate Professor and MonRiverGames director Heather Cole and BSW Program Director and Associate Professor Megan Gandy, and Roundtable Learning in the 2024-2025 school year as they were brought in to assist with this project. You can find the app here: 

https://vr.meta.me/s/2dMqhvDZ6t5U1qm

Poster for Social Work Simulator

WV Quest

For WV Quest, we updated one of the app's Cookie Cutter mini-game to now have multiple stages. While it starts with an outline of the state, it then moves inward as it teaches the player about the regions one by one across West Virginia. As we head into the Fall session, we are going to be focused on fleshing our games' educational content like we’ve done for this update. For more information about WV Quest visit here. 

Cookie Cutter Second Level Screencap

A lot of the work our teams completed this session was to prepare for our upcoming Fall session. If the studio and our projects interest you, we are having a drop in session to onboarding new community members both online in our Discord server as well as in person at Allen Hall 7th floor (704 School of Arts Offices) on West Virginia University’s Evansdale Campus to onboard new members for the studio. We are always happy to welcome new members, whether that is as a learner or a mentor. Follow this link for more information. 

As usual, we will also be onboarding new capstone and research work studies from WVU’s game design and interactive media program as well as computer science program for the next few weeks. This opportunity will be presented in your courses. If you are a WVU student looking for undergraduate research within game development, then follow the steps on the Office of Undergraduate Research to get started, and select Teaching Associate Professor of Game Design and Interactive Media Heather Cole as your mentor. The research office and Cole will review and discuss eligible applications.