The Project:
E-Line Media is a game developer and publisher dedicated to creating games and experiences that help players learn and shape the world around them. Their games seek to provide positive impact in the world by inspiring imagination, curiosity, and education into new perspectives. In addition to this, we will be working in tandem with Endless, a company looking to provide the opportunity for computing to everybody on the planet – enabling people access to digital literacy and relevant information and technology.
The Task:
Our clients have approached us with the task to create a game that fits within E-Line’s educational framework, and helps inspire people to code and create their own games.
Meet the Team:
Omar Cheikh-Ali is our team’s producer. He brings design and art experience to the project, and has a background in architecture.
Longyi Cheng one of our team’s three programmers.
Erhan Qu is one of our designers, and will be fulfilling our game design needs, as well as our sound needs for the project.
Siyu Ren is our team’s artist, with deep experience working in both 3D art and animation.
Yuqiao Zeng is our team’s second designer. He also brings programming skills to the table.
Chaojie (Zacks) Zhu will be working as another one of our team’s programmers. He has experiences with gameplay systems, and will be invaluable to the project.
This first update:
This week’s work has mostly consisted of housekeeping and getting set up. On the 16th, after a brief meeting where we sorted out roles and our personal goals for the project, we decided to take some time for team bonding over dinner. The rest of that week we spent researching the potential goals of our project, and individually brainstorming ideas for designs we wanted to possibly implement.
Tuesday the 23rd, we had our first meeting with one of our clients at E-Line Media. We had a chance to discuss logistics, when we could best Skype in, as Alan Gershenfeld of E-Line Media would be in Colorado, and Matt Dalio from Endless was away in Indonesia. In addition to this, we were able to get clarification on the specifics of our project; we learned the specific goal we should be looking at would be a 3D puzzle game that sought to inspire players to learn coding and game design through manipulation of the environment. Beyond that, we were allowed to run free with our creative ideas – possibly so we would be able to bring a fresh take on things to the clients.
Since then, we have been brainstorming ideas of games and narratives we would like to work on, working towards a pitch for our next client meeting on February 6th.
The excitement for this project is palpable in our room.