DePaul's CDM department just made history. This past fall, select CDM students teamed with students from Japan's Trident College of Computing and became the first academic institutions to work on an international, remote and collaborative game development project.
Noriko Tomuro, a DePaul University computing professor who headed the project, who was approached by Microsoft Xbox Japan about the possible collaboration.
"Trident wanted to do this," Tomuro said. In order to convince her, Trident came to Chicago to present their proposal to Tomuro. She decided to take on the project because of the students who would be interested. Specifically, "those students who like Japan and Japanese things, especially Japanese video games and anime," she said.
Dean of CDM, David Miller, gave all the credit to Tomuro for implementing the project at DePaul, "I just had the good sense to say yes," he said.
An application was sent out through the school's game development mailing list; the students came from a wide range of game development fields, including programming and art/animation.
The next nine months required navigation through plenty of obstacles before "Matsuri" – the game that would come from the project-- was ready to be sent to the Independent Games Festival, or IGF.
These obstacles included language and cultural barriers, 15-hour time differences, and opposing school schedules.
In late September, the CDM department helped sponsor a trip to Japan and, with the addition of their own funding, five DePaul students and Tomuro met their cross-Atlantic counterparts face-to-face.
Ryan Byczek, the DePaul team leader, explained a few of the benefits of that trip in an article he wrote upon his return. "While communication over the internet is convenient, being able to interact with team members face-to-face greatly helped strengthen our bond and increased our efficiency as a team," Byczek said.
The students were able to experience a wide variety of events in Japan. Including attending the Tokyo Game Show where, according to Ryan, they were able to play a preview of Skyrim, which had not yet been released.
"Matsuri," the game that came out of the DePaul/Trident project, is about the convergence of two worlds; one of humanity and one of demons. The two worlds live independently and do not know about the other's existence until a girl (whom players portray) is able to interact with both. The object is to get to the "Matsuri," a festival that is held in both worlds at the same time.
According to the game's website, the art, style, and music are inspired by a fusion of traditional Japanese festivals and New Orleans' Mardi Gras. There is a lot of interaction between 2D and 3D animation styles in the layout of the game, as well as the actions and powers possessed by the female character. All of these aspects combine to give "Matsuri" players a unique and intriguing gaming experience.
A simplified version of the game was entered into the 14th Annual Independent Games Festival in October. Out of a total of 295 student submissions for the festival, "Matsuri," unfortunately, did not make the cut into the final round.
The obstacles of the collaboration did take a toll, however, and Tomuro mentioned that they are still "recovering" and trying to catch-up on other items. As with most things that require hard work, Tomuro is satisfied knowing that, "all my effort was worthwhile."
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