Excitement writ large on their faces, their eagerness to show what they designed was palpable.They were also thrilled at the thought of getting to play a game or two. At the India Game Developer Conference (IGDC), teams of young participants came to demonstrate the games they had created.
Standing behind their desks, dressed in their school uniform, Shreyash Laxmi Narayan, Mihir Rao and Rushil Yadav, the VIII Std students of Shiv Nadar School in Gurugram explain their game ‘Dimensions switch’, which begins with a question, ‘Who will save the world now?’ Once you select ‘I will’ the player enters. The trio took part in a design championship with the game as they wanted to try something new after trying different design applications like Scratch (a free programming language for use in creating interactive stories, games, and animations) and MID.
It was their first game, and the trio says it took them two weeks to develop it. Do they love technology? “Yes, very much,” pat came the reply in unison. “This is our first opportunity and we feel really excited to see so many other gamers under one roof. Hoping to meet and speak to some game developers to understand how they work on different programs,” says Mihir Rao.
The team of boys from Shiv Nadar School Gurgaon. (L-R: Rushil Yadav, Mihir Rao, Shreyansh Lakshmi Narayan)
As Mihir speaks, Rushil and Shreyansh prepare for a demo of the game and explain, “We use fire and ice against each other as a weapon to get into the next dimension.” They are now looking to go back and see how to make it into different stages and let their friends try it.
Standing next to them is a team of students from St Joseph’s Academy, Ooty, Tamil Nadu. The four boys, Kim Eldon, F Fazil, Harish Balaji and Mohammed Saif studying in VII std take turns to explain the different aspects of the game and the way they developed it. They reveal that they attended and won at the design championship so they created a game called Miniscule for IGDC. The single-player game involves 31 bullets and 21 enemies. The idea of the game was perceived by Harish and Fazil and the characters were designed by Kim and Fazil using C Sharp coding. The game is in two design stages in which player can revive themself after almost meeting their end.
