Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/565118
14 2 0 1 5 E D U C AT I O N & R E C R U I T M E N T S P E C I A L Relic Hunter A core team of 16 students, who were joined off and on by about two dozen others, put their collective skills together – animation, computer science, illustration, music, psychology, advertising, and IT – to create a video game called Relic Hunter, coordinated through Brigham Young University's (BYU) Center for Animation. The aim of the project was to advance the group's game-making techniques and reinforce teamwork and leader ship skills. However, the group reaped some unex- pected benefits, too. The title was a finalist in the recent Entertainment Software Association's (ESA's) E3 College Game Competition, where the tens of thousands of trade show attendees were given the opportunity to check out the title, one of five selected to compete and given display space at the prestigious event. In Relic Hunter, players assume the role of an Indiana Jones/ Star Lord-type of player, collecting relics from abandoned alien civilizations while taking care to avoid hidden dangers. "The students worked hard, principally to make a great game. Their desire for a better title led them to constantly iterate and test the game," says Seth Holladay, assistant professor of computer science at the school. Industry mentors from studios such as Riot and Blizzard provided valuable feedback and pushed the students to up the quality of their game, in more ways than one. As with the BYU short films, students are in charge of the production, with faculty advising and coaching them throughout the process. Darren Walton served as the student producer on Relic Hunter and led the process and the team. The game was created during a six-month period, starting in October 2014. For most, this was not their first round at creating a game, as many of them developed titles on their own and joined the group project "to take it to the next level," says Holladay. Relic Hunter contains a single level filled with characters, environments, and obstacles. It is played on a Windows plat- form, and development occurred on the Unity game engine. Unity, Holladay points out, lets students iterate rapidly in the prototyping phase. Also, students were able to develop a modular set of pieces that let the level designers quickly rearrange the level, to test various aspects of gameplay. The crew used Autodesk's Maya for modeling, Adobe's Photoshop and Pixologic's ZBrush for texturing and sculpt- ing, and the open-source CrazyBump for normal mapping. For animation, they used Autodesk's MotionBuilder and Xsens Technologies' MVN Studio. Gameplay, surfacing, effects, and lighting occurred in Unity. Game players thrive in virtual competitive environments. Here, the Relic Hunter creative team was given a rare chance to show off their game development skills in the real world, on one of gaming's top stages: E3. "E3 is one of the most prestigious and competitive college game competi- tions out there," Holladay says. And with this, the winning tradition continues at BYU. ■