The DePaulia

Issue date: 2/1/10 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Matt Lazar The DePaul Game Elites (pictured) first started developing their video game, "Devil's Tuning Fork," in June 2009.

The game that won the DePaul students their spot among the ten 12th Annual IGF student showcase winners is entitled "Devil's Tuning Fork." The game is a first-person exploration/puzzle game in which the player must navigate a dark, unknown world using pulsing and fading sound waves to illuminate the surrounding environment.

The DePaul Game Elites received $500 for winning a spot in IGFSS top ten and will compete against the other nine winners of the IGFSS for the best student game trophy and prize of $2,500. The final winner will be announced on March 11 at the Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco.

The team has been featured in PC Gamer UK magazine, Igormania, a Russian gaming magazine, as well as on a significant number of Web sites including MSNBC.com and ABCnews.com.

I have never came close to beating even the most juvenile video game. Matt Lazar can remember a time when he could have said the same. The challenge came in the form of Super Mario Brothers 3. He was four years old.

Lazar has come quite a long way from struggling to defeat Bowser on Nintendo. Besides probably being able to beat the game practically blindfolded, the recent DePaul grad can now produce his own original video games from concept drawings to console. In that respect, Lazar and his team, DePaul Game Elites, are really making a name for themselves.

The DePaul Game Elites formed in May 2009 after team advisors and industry veterans Alex Seropian, Patrick Curry, Scott Roberts, Joe Linhoff and Bill Muehl selected a team of 15 members out of 40 candidates. As soon as the team members were chosen, DePaul graduate student and project/tech lead Jay Pecho knew that from day one the task was to develop a game that would win the Independent Games Festival student showcase.

Surpassing around 190 contenders worldwide, the team achieved it's goal.

Pecho said the goal for creating their game "was to create an innovative play experience, something that we had never seen before." Through an inventive brainstorm session, 3D artist Ashley Ruhl planted the award winning concept. Though Lazar created multiple PC games through DePaul as well as a game compatible with Xbox 360, Ruhl had no previous experience in game development.

"My original idea was to use sounds to find objects and solve puzzles that you couldn't see," Ruhl said. "We developed this idea of echolocation."

Thus began the six months to create what would usually take 18 to 24 months to develop from idea to retail. Because of the time crunch, Lazar said that quick development time required "a huge amount of hard work and dedication." But for the immense recognition the DePaul Game Elites received, the long summer hours sweating over circuit boards seems to be paying off.

Besides being among the ten IGFSS winners, the DePaul students were featured as one of the Top 99 freeware platformers on Indiegames.com. The visuals of "Devil's Tuning Fork" was recognized on Uncommon Assembly, a popular gaming Web site, as being a "uniquely mesmerizing and somewhat disorienting journey into the unreal."

The award-winning "Devil's Tuning Fork" is available for free download at www.devilstuningfork.com.

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