A wavering photograph of Vince Vaughn, disheveled and with one eye half-opened, illuminates from Dan Longo’s laptop.
“I always forget about it because I’ve had it for a couple of months,” Longo said. A graduate student in computer science and an instructor of CSC 116, Longo is also president of the Game Design and Development Club. “But when I’m doing a demonstration it projects onto the screen and a group of students start laughing because [Vaughn] looks trashed.”
And so begins Longo’s quest to bring adventure, excitement and computer knowledge to students.
The Game Design and Development Club has functioned as a flickering, almost holographic hope among computer science professors and students over the past few years, but last summer Longo decided to make it a reality. The triumphant first meeting will be held on Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Daniels 406.
“The only other club computer science majors had was the ACM/AIPP and it was for IP professionals and it was all on the business side,” Ken Wyman, a junior in computer science, said. “And we need one on the lighter side of development because that is becoming a huge part of the industry.”
Game design has become a financial powerhouse in the United States in the past few years, calling for bright young students to step up to the challenge.
“The video game industry is bigger than Hollywood right now in terms of money and everything,” Longo said. “Every year we have students come in here saying, ÔWhen are we going to learn about games?’ and we used to not offer a thing about them.”
Currently, the only specific game design class is CSC 481, which has a list of prerequisites four semesters long, including CSC 216, 316 and 226. With the amount of work required, one has to be a junior before taking the game design course. The Game Design and Development club will change that.
“The president of Epic Games gave a talk about how a student’s GPA is unimportant,” Longo said. “The president said he wants the people who stay up all night working because it is fun for them. Part of it is what a person puts into it. I mean personally, I don’t think I could get a job in it right now; I don’t have the experience in what is going on right now.”
“I am all about the beginning stuff, so I make stuff like that. Not that I don’t think I could do it, I just don’t have any experience. But for any freshman or sophomore that wanted to break into the industry, they definitely could. I’m trying to show people the basics, show them the path, and walk with them down it for a few seconds.”
Game programming involves intense patience and interest. The hours can be long and frustrating for beginners, and some members of the N.C. State community are excited but hesitant about the prospect of this new club.
“[Game development] is a tough industry to find one’s way into. I’m sure there are many students with an interest in game-making,” said Thomas Mason, a junior in electrical and computer engineering. “I have no doubt they could find members. But it is an organization [that] will no doubt live or die based on knowledgeable leadership.”
Longo has an impressive record and has already developed a two dimensional game system with his teaching assistant and co-founder of the club, Amanda Macik, a sophomore in computer science. He possesses 30 files of coding with some stretching 2,000 lines long, culminating in a story and game similar to Mario Brothers.
“My dream was to make some kind of Nintendo game,” Longo said with a smile. “In the story, the main character is sort of a loser. Everybody makes fun of him and there is a scene where a cloud is just following over his head. It’s sort of just like a slapstick, funny kind of game.”
But it does take a turn for the serious — the hero nicknamed “Joe” (in reference to the average guy) must cast away his fears and begin a dangerous adventure to save the woman he loves from certain torment.
“This level is where he doesn’t have a costume or anything yet,” described Longo, referring to the opening challenge where graphics made in Microsoft paint depict Joe in nothing but shorts, a t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap. “This is what I call a place-holder scene; these aren’t the graphics that would be used in the game. But they illustrate the point.”
The importance of the game, temporarily dubbed “Joe Hero,” is not in the game itself but in the experience of building an engine that works.
“The graphics depict things like moving land, enemies, objects to collect, a timer, gravity and how many lives Joe has left,” stated Longo about his engine’s capabilities. “Joe has special traits that make him funny, such as throwing wrenches and possessing a lot of gas — his secret weapon. If something gets close to him, he can let loose on them and destroy them with his odors.”
Joe Hero also has a great theme, as all video games must. What is a true hero?
“Someone will see a movie and the girl eventually comes around and goes with the dude who saved her, but in real life that’s not what it is like,” Longo explained. “The hero wants to help people while the girl goes back to her drunken ex-boyfriend that hits her and stuff. Because the hero can’t get the girl, it’s kind of the rule.”
And so Longo circulates, back to the drunken picture of Vince Vaughn casting eerie light from his computer screen. That drunken guy gets Jennifer Aniston and the hero gets self satisfaction, whether through physical exertion or computer programming. “[Game design] is something that students taking computer science at State would never imagine they could do,” Longo said full of inspiration. “But the reality is they can do it. It just takes a little bit of work. And that is the message I want to send to students that are interested.”
Macik added that her goal for the club is “that people who enjoy or want to get into creating games can bring their ideas together and meet each other.”
