Hallow Games

West Virginia video game development

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WVU Game Developers Club Podcast Appearances

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This semester, our club secretary Ahmed Mian started a podcast talking about various game design and industry topics.  I made a guest appearance in a few episodes, the ones I am in are embeded below.

Gametalk is a weekly podcast show discussing games and the gaming industry. New episodes are uploaded every Wednesday @ 9 AM EST on SoundCloud and iTunes.

In this episode, we talk about The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, physical vs digital storefronts, and the games we are currently playing (Kerbal Space Program, Snipperclips, and Horizon: Zero Dawn).

In this episode, we talk about Nintendo Switch, virtual reality, and achievements.

(We recorded future episodes I will be appearing in as well, this post will be updated once those podcasts are available!)

 

Leading Unity Workshop Spring 2017

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I got to lead a Unity Workshop for the club again this semester.  I got feedback at the end of the previous workshop and worked most of that into improvements for this version.

As before, the library has been super supportive of the event and Unity was still on the Mac books from last semester.  I noticed that we had several people that didn’t install the engine before the workshop last time, so to help make sure everyone was on the same page and using the same version of Unity, I required the group to use the library Mac books, which solved that problem.

A huge challenge I had with the previous one as well was people working at different paces.  To help solve this more, once we walked through all the basic Unity controls, I told everyone that if I was going too slow they were welcome to work ahead on the downloaded PowerPoint.

It seemed to me like people worked together more on this one, when one person had a question, if they couldn’t ask me they could ask someone next to them or I had enough help from my fellow officers to help everyone with their questions.  I think everyone got something out of it just based on the positive conversation afterwards and the more positive feedback on our forms this time.  We also got more people working in Unity after the workshop either in the club’s Fixer Upper Jam or in the Unity Jam.

Image may contain: 4 people, people standing

WVU Game Developers Club Highlight Reel

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When I was working on the YouTube channel for the club this semester uploading videos from the 2017 Global Game Jam, I realized we really didn’t have a channel trailer.  I’m not sure where the idea came, but I had seen several Unity game engine highlight reel videos and naturally thought it would be great for the club to have one.  So I made this video right after that game jam and it was up to date on all the games the club had made up to the point the video was created.  You can watch below, or follow the link to YouTube.  Below the video here is a list of all the games  and links to more info about them.

West Virginia University Game Developer Club Game Highlight Reel
August 2015 – January 2017

Music:
Chris Moore – Playground
https://soundcloud.com/chris-moore-fi…

WVU GDC Student Games Page:
http://gamedevclub.orgs.wvu.edu/stude…

Marble Maze – Jordan Hallow
http://www.hallowgames.com/portfolio/…

Giant Skies – Veronica Blackshire, James Cockburn, Destiny Dunn, Jordan Hallow, Keenan McClane
http://gamedevclub.orgs.wvu.edu/stude…

Homage – Kati Baker, Taylor Cutlip, Jason Huffman
http://gamedevclub.orgs.wvu.edu/stude…

A Day in the Life – James Cockburn,
Destiny Dunn, Keenan McClane, John Jacko
http://globalgamejam.org/2016/games/d…

Blood Moon – Taylor Cutlip, Connor Haynes, Billy Marty
http://globalgamejam.org/2016/games/b…

Keepers Fate – Jordan Hallow
http://globalgamejam.org/2016/games/p…

Hugs – Connor Haynes
https://proudmomgames.itch.io/hugs

Pom Pixels – Destiny Dunn

Quest to Find All – Destiny Dunn, Jordan Hallow, Connor Haynes, Ryan Kubik
https://wvugamedevelopers.itch.io/que…

Voxel Engine – Destiny Dunn, Connor Haynes, Ryan Kubik

Sweet and Spooky – Kati Baker, Gabby Dumire, Destiny Dunn, Ryan Kubik, Ahmed Mian, Tristan Snyder
http://www.gm48.net/game/?id=331

Pirates – Gabby Dumire, Ryan Kubik, Tristan Snyder
https://friendlyfrog.itch.io/pirates

Frog Clicker – Gabby Dumire

Lobsterbotomy – Gabby Dumire, Jordan Hallow, Connor Haynes, Ryan Kubik, Curtis Stapleton, Tristan Snyder
https://wvugamedevelopers.itch.io/lob…

Hank Heads Home – Connor Haynes, Elliot Imlay, James Jackman, Ahmed Mian, Ken Wu
http://globalgamejam.org/2017/games/h…

Microwave Master – Gabby Dumire, Michael Dumire, Destiny Dunn, Tristan Snyder
http://globalgamejam.org/2017/games/m…

VG Trivia Quiz App – Jordan Hallow
http://www.hallowgames.com/portfolio/…

Unstable – Ryan Kubik
https://law5guy.itch.io/unstable

Perspectrum – Connor Haynes, Jacob Stevens, Gabby Dumire

Watch on YouTube

Video Game Trivia Quiz App

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So over Christmas break, I looked back at my goals for 2016 and I saw that I had written to publish a game on the Android store.  As you may have seen in an earlier post, I worked through a course where I created a basic Elementary Math Test and published that to the app store.  After I made that, I felt that I knew enough to create a video game trivia app. It included basic trivia on famous game developers, consoles, industry firsts, and a mix of all those categories.

The game has been in an open beta since I posted that tweet.  I have gotten some feedback from the club, including in a feedback form that I created and shared which has really helped me out.  I’m hoping to address those changes and fix bugs soon to get it into a release state.

Links Here:

Game Description Page on Hallow Games site

Game Store Page on Google Play

Morgantown WV Global Game Jam 2017

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Once again for this year, I served as the site organizer for the Morgantown, WV site of the Global Game Jam.

We had four speakers again this year.  They were professor Jeffrey Moser, Dr. Frances Van Scoy, indie game developer Elliott Iannello, and VP of Design at Schell Games Harley Baldwin.  All of their talks are attached in the playlist below from the club YouTube channel.

Also in the playlist are team interviews from Saturday of the jam, as well as final team presentations to the rest of the group.  Overall, I think the event was a success.  Even though I didn’t personally make a game this year, it seemed that everyone that participated really enjoyed the experience.  We also got a ton of great media exposure from this event, which I think helped the club as well!

You can read more about the individual game projects and download them at the first link below.

External Links:

Global Game Jam Site Page

News Coverage:

Daily Athenaeum Article Interview (WVU Student Paper)

WDTV Channel 5 Interview Article

WDTV Channel 5 Video News Report

Lobsterbotomy – Ludum Dare 37 – WVU Game Developers Club

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Lobsterbotomy is a game entry that several members of the WVU Game Developers Club made for Ludum Dare 37 over the weekend of December 9-11, 2016.  The theme was “One Room”.  In the game, you play as a lobster in someone’s head, who is on a date.  You control that lobster who picks the dialogue options to continue on the date.  As you are playing, there are also other controls/parts of the body that you have to keep in check including butterflies from the stomach, frogs from your throat, and a beating heart, that beats faster when you are nervous.

We brainstormed the first night when the theme was announced and after talking for several hours through several ideas, when we were going through a favorite idea round of discussion, I came up with the idea of gamifying the Disney Pixar film “Inside Out”.  From there, it was turned into a game and we spent a good amount of time drawing out possible dialogue trees to see if we could even make it work.

Besides the initial idea, I helped out with determining some of the actions, and writing a bit of the dialogue.  Over the weekend I had several other things happening, so I would say this is the least that I put into a game jam but I think the rest of the team pulled together very well and were able to make an excellent game in such a short amount of time.

External Links:

Ludum Dare Entry Page

Online game on WVU Game Developers Itch.io