Toy adventurers

The following is the third installment in a five-part series about the process and inspiration behind Game Lab projects.

Game Lab is a senior-level Arts & Technology course in which students work together to produce a playable game.

“Pint Sized Crusaders” Crew Leader: Skyler Tinker

What is your game about?

It’s about kids who use their imagination to explore their world and conquer their chores using toys. The player plays as the toy to help complete a chore.

What we’ve got right now is a militaristic theme for a lot of them, like a Vietnam War look for the “cutting the grass” chore. That means is the level is obviously centered around a jungle, but its on a micro-scale, which makes it apparent they’re in a yard.

At the same time, all the enemies you fight and what’s happening is part of the Vietnam War theme.

How did you get the idea?

I was trying to come up with an idea for senior design project and I was having a really hard time. The best thing we had was a random idea with paint.

Late one night, I decided to go for a run. When I got back — I have no idea how — but I figured out the whole concept.

I guess you could say I’ve always been a nerd, so when I was little I used to play with action figures all the time.

Everyone wants to have that nostalgia of being a kid again, and that’s where this started.

How is your game progressing?

We’ve been working on the game for about eight months, and we changed direction a bit from last semester.

We’re moving a lot faster than we have before, so I’m pretty excited about that.

The biggest thing we’ve come up against is moving the team around to do what they’re good at.

The first semester, we saw what everyone was good at, and in the second semester we’ve got people to do what they’re good at.

What is your plan after game lab?

Sometime before the end of the semester we have a pretty big deadline coming up. We started a company and we’re hoping to approach Microsoft with this project.