Drug Run - A Game Dev Experience
The Project
I get the chance to wear many hats as part of my program, Global Business and Digital Arts, from project manager to marketer and beyond. For one of my classes, GBDA 301, I acted as the co-developer of a computer game requisitioned by the Victorian Department of Health designed to address the issue of Pill Parties among young adults. Below is the commercial for our finished product so you can get an overarching view of the work we completed.
The Team
To build such a game, each member of our team each had to take on a very specialized role to ensure we could create not only a fully featured game but a proper game design document to support it. While I was working with my co-developer Austin, our team was hard at work tracking the project, conducting user testing and making sure we were on schedule.
The Process
The development process started with a great deal of brainstorming around what a game like this should look like. Our idea started as a simulation of a pill party with a mini-game built into each pill. After further discussion of this idea, it was decided that this approach was unachievable in the timeframe we were given. After more ideating, we landed on the idea of a classic vertical scroller where collision with a pill would trigger an educational popup forcing youths to say no to Pill Parties to survive.
To develop the game, my co-developer and I decided to challenge ourselves by learning Unity and C# to use as the development tool for our game. This approach presented a number of roadblocks during the development process, but after a number of hours writing out solutions on whiteboards we were able to make our game operational. All games have bugs and improvements that can be made, but we think our final product turned out pretty well.
(A look at the development environment my co-developer and I worked within)
The Game
If you’d like to learn more about the game, you can watch our final deliverable video describing more in depth how the game works and how the game addresses the issue of Pill Parties.
I’d like to thank my team:
Remily Middaugh - Project Manager
Jay Barrett - Project Manager
Michelle Kostka - Supporting Graphics and Project Manager
Tia Vu - Graphic Designer
Austin Fisher - Co-Developer
