GameDev from scratch: From the hackathon to your own game development studio. Part 1

    Introducing a new series of articles on game development. In it, a small studio from St. Petersburg will talk about how their love for gamedev began, how they created the first game and became the winners of an international competition . We invite you to cut into the fascinating history of indie developers in the first person.



    Series of articles "GameDev from scratch"


    1. From the hackathon to his own game development studio: part 1 , part 2 .
    2. Unity3D and vector graphics .
    3. How to communicate with the player without words .
    4. How to get out of chaos and start working .

    let's get acquainted


    Hello! We are the IzHard team - a small game development studio from St. Petersburg. We are working on two projects OVIVO and coloristique . The love of game dev began with just participating in the Microsoft hackathon more than two years ago. Since then we have come a long way. We started by not knowing anything about development, then came to the hackathon, made a prototype of the OVIVO game, with which we won the 2015 Imagine Cup international competition, received a grant and founded our own game development studio.



    During all this time, we have accumulated a lot of experience, which we want to share with you. The first article of the series will be useful for those who are going to participate in the upcoming Imagine Cup 2017. We’ll tell you what the Imagine Cup is, what actions led us to victory and give some tips. In the next article we will talk about our work in the studio: how it differs from developing a game for the contest, what problems do indie developers have and how to solve them.

    What is the Imagine Cup


    This is an international competition from Microsoft , aimed at developing interest in information technology among young people. It takes place every year and can be attended by students, graduate students and schoolchildren over 16 years old. The Imagine Cup is held in several stages: at the beginning of the national stage - one winner is chosen in each country, then there is an online selection - the best projects are selected among the national winners, and finally, the final, which is held in Seattle, USA, at Microsoft headquarters.

    Until 2017, all projects were divided into three categories: innovation, social projects, games. Since the current year, all projects have been held under one category - innovation.



    The essence of the competition is the presentation of some cool technological idea. The team will have to develop a prototype, come up with a business plan and make a presentation of their project to the judges.

    Evaluated by several criteria: how much your product effectively uses new technologies, what is the novelty of the project, whether it will be successful in the market and how relevant the idea is. As a result, the team that won the first place, Microsoft will allocate a cash grant of $ 100,000 for the development of the project.

    As it was in 2015


    Our team first met at the hackathon in November 2014. This was our first hackathon, in which we developed the prototype of the OVIVO game. The joy of victory was so inspiring that we decided to finalize the project, at least to the stage of a small demo. The recruitment of participants at the Imagine Cup took place in the same period, and without thinking twice, we decided to try our hand and take part.

    In order to get to the national stage, it was necessary to go regional in St. Petersburg. During the preparation, we thought about how to make our presentation special, and decided to make it as an application on Unity. Since the game was based on the same engine, the gameplay process did not have to be interrupted by the slide show. This idea really helped us earn points in subsequent stages.



    At the national stage, we also made a presentation at Unity, but it was more elaborate: we reduced the text and made it more expressive, fixed many bugs, and simply simply worried less, since the presentation was fully worked out.



    Preparation for the final was a serious test, because this year we graduated from the university and the team had to closely combine preparation for the competition and thesis. Therefore, we gave all our best as much as free time from study allowed:

    • They showed the project every week to Microsoft employees, journalists, and other teams.
    • Lost various situations where the presentation could go wrong, learned to correctly answer provocative questions.
    • We were learning the text, because English was not up to par with us.
    • We worked a lot on the build of the game itself. They made an interesting feature: the players themselves could draw a figure with a felt-tip pen, take a picture of it and add it to the game. Many judges really liked her.

    This is an interview before preparation.



    As a result, we radically changed the presentation. Initially, it lacked liveliness and wow effects, and we simply missed many key points. Together with mentors from Microsoft's Moscow office, Anastasia Makeenok and Dmitry Soshnikov , we came up with, for example, a trick with a discharged battery, which very pleasantly surprised both the jury and the audience (4:01).



    All these efforts were not in vain - our team won first place in the Games category and we received a $ 50,000 grant from Microsoft. We were extremely happy and felt very relieved that all this was finally over.



    However, as winners, we still had to compete with other winners of our categories for the Imagine Cup - the winner among the winners, and for this it was necessary to speak to the audience of thousands with a shorter version of the presentation. The jury invited famous people: Alex Kipman - the chief designer of the Kinect controller, Jens Bergensten - the lead developer of Minecraft and Thomas Middleditch - the actor of the series "Silicon Valley".



    We did not take the cup, but still very happy, although tired, they soon returned home. And our next step was the creation of a studio, which we will discuss in the next part of the material.

    Tips for Beginners


    Imagine cup is a super contest that gives you the opportunity to test your idea and yourself. For us, this was the most unforgettable adventure that changed our lives. We would really like to all those who are still thinking about participating or not, definitely answer - participate! Registration is now open . But you must not forget that the competition will take away a lot of your time and energy. We would like to share some tips and tricks that we ourselves followed, we hope that they will be useful to you.

    • Try to select interested people in the team for the competition, even if they have little experience. More likely that the project will not be abandoned halfway.
    • If no one knows English in the team, you are less likely to get into the finals, even if you have passed the national selection. Unfortunately, this is one of the important criteria, despite the steepness of your idea.
    • Don't be afraid to experiment with your presentation. Try not to follow a strict pattern.
    • Do not be afraid of performances at the performance, but do not get too carried away.
    • Make the presentation fun. Laughter will help you relax and not be nervous, and the jury will take a break from dry facts.
    • Be calm about questions like: “Well, what better could you have come up with?”.
    • These kinds of questions are simply used to look at your reaction.
    • Spend more time implementing your idea. It alone can be a great presentation.
    • The key to a great presentation is rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal.
    • Watch a performance by Brainy Studio, the 2014 winners. This is a great example.
    • Additionally, you can read their blog “ Tips of the experienced ”, many of them we followed in preparation.

    We hope that this article was useful and interesting for you.

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