JAMES LILLIN
Staff Writer
Video games are quickly evolving from their humble console origins into something much more powerful and ubiquitous. From mobile gaming to competitive e-sports, game culture is quickly worming its way into the national zeitgeist as a sign of the times. Most people are happy playing games in their spare time without thinking about the effort that goes into making them, but a new club at Fredonia is aiming to help change that.
Video Game Development Club, or VGD for short, was founded this semester by sophomore computer science major Kermit Mitchell III, who hopes that he can bring together the talent at Fredonia to start creating original games.
“I want to get people together for the common cause of making games, and I think now is the time to do it,” said Mitchell.
VGD currently has temporary recognition from the Student Association, was granted permission to have a table at Activities Night and hopes to capitalize on the high amount of interest that they were met with.
“There’s a need for this right now, says Mitchell. “Our school is a liberal arts school. People want to express themselves in various forms, and frankly, people like games. There are computer science majors who want to code games, animation majors who want to design for games, composers who want to compose for games. With a lot of our current curriculum, the opportunities just aren’t there, and this club is an opportunity to correct that.”
Jamari Gant, sophomore computer science major and vice president of VGD, knew that he wanted to design games since youth, and he sees VGD as a way to capitalize on his dreams.
“People might call them a waste of time,” said Gant, “but for me when I’ve struggled in life, or was bullied, games were what gave me joy. It made me feel that when I grew up I wanted to be a part of giving that joy to other kids.”
VGD plans on taking a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to designing games, best embodied by their treasurer, senior software development major Elijah Weyant.
“I’ve gone at design from multiple perspectives,” said Weyant. “I’ve worked on the narrative side with plot and scripting, and I’ve gone at it from the coding side. I’ve also worked on art with Blender [a type of animation program] basically all so that I could find at least one way that I can get into video game design.”
Mitchell predicts that the first semester of VGD will be primarily educational for prospective members.
“For this first semester, what we have to do is educate the members on the workflow and process of how to develop a game,” said Mitchell. “There will be workshops on game design, the philosophy on rules for writing a game and how mechanics work, as well as workshops on art and writing stories for games effectively.”
Come Spring 2018, Mitchell plans on beginning development in earnest of original, student-produced games.
“Either every group member will be focused on their own respective teams, or people will be given assignments and tasks to do as members of the Development Team and meetings will be combining those things,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell had thought, going into Activities Night, that the vast majority of VGD signups would be from computer science majors, but in reality it wound up being very different.
“I’m honestly shocked that we haven’t had a majority of computer science students sign up,” said Mitchell. “We’ve had a lot of sound recording people and artists sign up. I like it actually, because when people think of game development they think ‘Oh, I can’t use computers’, or ‘I’m not good at math or at programming’, but there are so many parts of designing a video game that there are opportunities for everybody.
VGD is still going through the process of planning and organizing their first meeting, but they are eager to welcome in new members. Anyone interested in joining, or with questions about the club, is encouraged to send an email to kmitchelliii@fredonia.edu.
“It’s very difficult for anyone to [create a videogame] on their own, which is why we need a team to work together,” said Mitchell.
As for Mitchell’s favorite video game?
“Pokemon Blue, hands down, no question.”