Computer games are a fun pastime, but developing them is hard work. Graduating students in media information and interactive hobbies at Midweed University of Applied Science realized this when they created their own game. Alexander Marbaugh, the course’s professor, gave his 34 graduates only one requirement: to finish the game in the end.
“At first we wanted to create an operating system with combat elements,” said Tina Keesling, who led the program team along with her fellow student Leon Portius. It should be a classic platform game just like the “Super Mario” games. But programming movements – like jumping and running – are more comprehensive, he says. Not to forget the planned combat system, which would have been a lot of work.
Three months later the students decided to start again. However, it also left less time to complete. “It worked well because the team stuck so well,” says Tina Keesling. Over the past week, everyone has lent once again, says Anja Schmidt, co-chair of the art group that designed the characters and the environment of the game. “Everyone wanted to finish the game,” Anja Schmidt insists.
The result is “Scoo-King”, a virtual kitchen battle for four players. Creative director Ibrahim Kirchstein explains, “It’s a two-for-two game. Players must collect items in their own kitchen and use them to cook food.” Then they throw them into the opposing kitchen. The different skills of the dishes create an interesting mess, “said Ibrahim Kirchstein. The team that still stands at the end wins.
Professor Alexander Marbaugh made his students play. “Every development process has a middle ground in which the impetus is exhausted and the outcome can not yet be expected,” he says. “But the more synchronized, the easier it is to navigate this valley.” In his opinion, teamwork made the game so much better. “I know of similar good projects that were at the expense of the developer,” Marbach notes. However, that is not the purpose of the lesson. “Students need to learn something about sports preparation,” explains Professor Midweed.
The name “Scoo-King” is derived from the English words for skate – ice skating or roller skating – and cooking – cooking. “It all started with the idea that the characters should slide to the ground,” the creative director explains. This inspiration comes from the ice riddles in Pokemon games. The game count slipped until it hit an obstacle. A quick resemblance to the culinary game of “Over Cook” is also surprising. “This association comes up a lot. We looked at perspective and camera angles on ‘Over Cook’ and used these as orientation points for our game,” explains Leon Bordius.
“Scoo-King” currently only runs on PC. “We may still be planning to make the game available for the Nintendo Switch console,” says Tina Keesling. To do this, you need to edit the game, for example, to modify the controls for the console. However, the software required for this is relatively expensive. “It depends on how much time we have apart from our internship,” explains Ibrahim Kirchstein.
After finishing the game, students should now decide how to proceed with “Scoo-King”, says Professor Alexander Marbach. According to him, the plan ended: “This is an object.” Students need to learn how a product works, what can go wrong, and what errors arise in planning.
Who is the “Scoo-King” I would love to try this for you Download the game for free on the Internet. It runs on Windows 10 operating system and with controllers:
https://games-studieren.itch.io/ Scooking
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