Digital Media with Joey

Transcript

So now let’s head over to the carrier center at the Culp here at ETSU and meet up with Joey. He’s a junior studying digital media with a concentration in game design. He’s gonna share a little bit about what he’s learning and his current game design projects. If you are interested in gaming you are certainly gonna wanna watch this. Joey, please take it away.

– Hey guys. Hey Alex. Upon arriving here at ETSU and entering its digital media program I had no idea that I’d be taking my first step into the game design industry. Prior to my freshman year of college I had developed a love for indie games which is a passion that seemed to only grow since then. Although most of the classes that I took applied to designing 3D games, learning these core concepts helped me better understand the realm of 2D games, the kind of games that I wanted to create. After establishing these new design practices and being eager to practice my newly acquired programming skills I felt prepared for the journey I had ahead of me when I began developing my first indie game title, Chiaroscuro. Chiaroscuro is a 2D adventure platform run with metroidvania elements. You take the role of a mysterious amnesiac where you have to explore an interconnected world that has fallen into darkness. The game began as a solo hobby project though after having an encouraging conversation with my game design professor I realized I wanted to work on the game full time. Initially I was hesitant about pursuing this passion project as it’s my first game and at the time it was simply an outlet for honing my newly acquired programming skills. Though my professor reassured me that every project that I’m going to do is going to be for practice. And if I’m going to put this much passion into a project I might as well make it worth it and publish the game. The same concept stands true for all aspiring artists, musicians or game developers alike. As I continue to develop the game and share its progress online it started to gain quite a bit of exposure and started to grow a small community. I had heard of success stories of solo developers launching Kickstarter campaigns to fund their indie games. And so I started working towards launching one of my own. When Chiaroscuro’s Kickstarter launched in October of 2020, the relationships and connections I had made here at ETSU were incredibly influential to its success. In the end, Chiaroscuro’s Kickstarter raised over $17,000 in just 29 days, blowing away its original goal of $15,000. Thanks to the concepts that I learned from these core classes along with the encouragement that I received from my professors along the way I felt motivated enough to see this game’s campaign through to its conclusion and to continue pursuing my passion as an indie game developer. I plan to continue developing Chiaroscuro until after I graduate where I’ll eventually release it on Steam for Windows and Mac in 2022 or 2023. Thanks for listening to my story. Back to you, Alex.

– Joey, that was so cool. The digital media program here is so fun. The game you are designing is amazing. Big congrats on that. Very, very impressive. We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Cheers Joey.