By CHARLES BOLDES
Student Reporter
The Northwestern Computer Science Club, along with other colleges and high schools across the state of Oklahoma spent last weekend developing video games at the Heartland Gaming Expo in Tulsa.
This was Northwestern’s second year at the event, and the club was rewarded with three second-place prizes.
The Heartland Gaming Expo kicked off in 2013; the first two expos were held at the University of Tulsa, and both drew large groups. The event aims for further growth in the next few years.
The event is hands-on with guest speakers, vendors, a free-play arcade and gaming tournaments. The expo holds the largest game development competition in the region for students interested in developing or designing video games. Experts were on-hand to help those wanting to learn how to create games.
Day one of the Heartland Expo started with the 24-hour code jam, where teams from colleges and high schools were asked to build a game based on a mystery theme chosen by the organizers of the Expo. This year’s theme was “Fate.” Teams were required to maintain a webpage during the competition so they could generate publicity for their game.
Scott Bartley, a junior at Northwestern and a first-time attendant at the expo, said, “It was a fun experience, I didn’t expect the area to be small, I actually expected a much bigger crowd. I expected everyone to be nervous also, yet I could see everyone was in their own comfort zone.”
This year Northwestern Team 2, which consisted of Garett Logan and Matt Day, entered the 24-hour code jam. The theme was difficult, as it was open to almost anything, and every team wanted to have something unique.
Nine teams entered this year’s competition providing a higher level of competition than last year.
“The 24-hour code jam was fun. This year we brought the new concept of where people had to maintain a webpage. With it they could give the link out on social media and get their friends to vote for them in two rounds,” said Roger Mailler, chair of the organizing committee. The first round ended Saturday morning; the first place prize was four Skullcandy headphones and the second place prize was a dinner provided by the event curators. Northwestern Team 2 won second place in the first round.
When the 24-hour code jam finished Saturday night, the second round prizes were given out; Northwestern Team 2 took second place there as well, winding up with four 32 GB USB drives.
The Expo also had a gallery show where students could enter their concept artwork for games they wish to make or are in the process of making.
This year’s special guests included Chance Thomas, an American composer best known for scoring blockbuster video games like “DOTA 2,” “Lord of the Rings Online” and “Dungeons & Dragons.” Also appearing were Richard Huenink, producer for the popular Steam game “7 Days to Die,” and Eric Peterson, who was instrumental in building “Star Citizen” from the ground up after he helped generate $70 million in crowd funding — a new world record.
“The level of graphical interaction in the game was much greater than last year, so they had time to prepare a lot more since last year. So it was evident that people worked a lot hard for this year,” Hogan said.
Computer games can represent one of the best displays of technological expertise and artistic expression. Evan Vaverka, captain of the Computer Science club and a senior at Northwestern, said, “It was really fun being in a room with a bunch of people passionate about the same thing. It was fun being able to test play other show case demos. It was an interesting experience giving them feedback on their demos, and they gave feedback on our own.”
“I am just happy people recognized all that hard work. Hopefully we can do the same thing next year, maybe even do better,” Vaverka said.