A screenshot from Roy Tu's game "Camp". Tu has been programming videogames for several years.
BY JESSICA WEAVER
In our fast paced, technologically driven generation, many students find themselves engaged in the world of video games and complicated gaming systems. But, senior Roy Tu has taken his love of gaming further than most by creating and programing his very own video games.
The hobby began several years ago when Tu met his current best friend, Nigel Carter. Intrigued by Carter’s hobby of making video games, Tu began to develop an interest.
“He ended up teaching me and I suppose I owe him a ton for that,” Tu said.
As his interest grew, Tu began enhancing his programming skills and building up more knowledge in addition to what he had learned from Carter. To further learn the techniques Tu used a system called “Game Maker”. Game Maker, a development application that allows users to create video games without any prior knowledge of programing lingo, helped Tu learn the ropes of videogame programming.
Photo Credit: JACK BRADY
“When I first started, I never saw myself as a game developer. I really enjoyed engineering (both hardware and software), and with the cost of hardware being so high, programming seemed like a neat alternative,” Tu said.
To begin making a game, Tu starts by deciding what type of game to create. Using his creative mind, he is able to think of unique scenarios using inspiration he finds in movies and books. Once he comes up with an idea he works vigorously to make his idea come alive.
“Really, it just comes down to finding something, anything and thinking, “how can I make that accessible to the player?” Tu said.
Once Tu has the general theme he refines the idea behind the game. Creating concept art in Photoshop, he passes the designs around for others to check over in order to help shape the idea before he makes a prototype. The process is long and rigorous and it is easy to run into problems.
“The general rule seems to be to take however long you think the game will take… and then triple that,” Roy said, “It’s usually a cycle of editing it on paper, then implementing, then debugging, and then you realize that the original idea you had is completely unworkable so you go back to the draft, then [do] more debugging.”
Tu designs various styles of video games that take anywhere from four hours to four months to create depending on the complexity of the game. His designs range from platform style games like Mario Brothers, shooting games, or even arcade games. Each game design Tu comes up with is unique and takes a lot of skill and hard work to create.
“It takes a lot of time and dedication and is on the brink of masochism,” Tu said.
For the most part Tu creates video games alone, but occasionally he will team up with a graphic designer due to his difficulty with drawing.
“It’s usually a bad idea to have two programmers on such a small team because coding styles are all different, but I’ve found it works well in practice,” Tu said.
Trying to make some profit off of his talent, Tu once worked with someone in Belgium on porting some games to flash to sell to publishers. But due to some difficulties the marketing end of it never went through. Despite that setback, Tu continues to work to make profit from his hobby.
Besides earning money from developing his very own programming, Tu finds satisfaction in sharing his creations with his friends. Tu’s friends not only take part in playing his games but are able to share their own knowledge of programming as well.
“Sometimes it’s fun to see my friend’s reactions,” Tu said “Typically it’s mild interest or absolute confusion.”
Tu participates regularly in the Ludum Dare competition where competitors have 48 hours to create a game from start to end. Tu also competes every three months in the Game Make Community. This allows Tu to compete against other programmers and enhance his own work.
“They’re a ton of fun because there’s a complete lack of competition whatsoever; everyone freely helps everyone else,” Tu said.
A screenshot from Tu's game "Solution".
Although Tu does not plan on a career in video game making, he has a high interest in computer science. Graduating this year, Tu will continue his pastime well past college in hopes to improve his hobby and eventually attend the Game Developer’s Conference or even set up a booth at E3.
“Game design gives me a sense of direction and a great community of developers to boot. I don’t think I’d be completely lost without it, but it’s been fantastic as a hobby,” Tu said.
