What is IMT&S?
IMT&S is a module at the start of the fourth year of the study Creative Media & Game Technologies at Saxion University of Applied Sciences. It aims to empower students in defining their identity as either an artist, engineer, or designer in preparation for the transition to graduation and post-graduation phases. It is structured within the learning community of Immersive Technologies and Storytelling at the Academy of Creative Technologies.
During this module, students get the opportunity to collaborate with each other on different projects. For startups, there is a special opportunity to work fulltime on their idea. This is being supported by the XR Lab and the Centre For Entrepreneurship.
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Our startup idea
During the last project of the second year, we created the game 'Apollo Arena' under the studio name 'Ancient Turtle Studios'. This is a multiplayer VR bow shooting game that uses the free-for-all gamemode for its gameplay. Players fight in an arena to get the most kills and win the round. During this project, we won the competition with the other studios and got to present our game at the WirWar gaming festival. This gave us the opportunity to expand our network. During the Reality Check Festival in 2022, we got in contact with Sam Watts from HTC, a big company that creates and sells VR headsets. They were willing to put us in the traject of getting funding to develop Apollo Arena to a higher level. Sadly, after half a year, we got laid down and the possible collaboration ended.
Now, 1 year after the creation of Apollo Arena, we decided to start working on a completely new game that is more single player focused. The reason behind this choice is the feedback we got from HTC and other publishers. They indicated that they are more interested in single player story games than big multiplayer games. Since we would very much like to have a collaboration with HTC, we decided to try to get their attention again with a fresh new game.
During IMT&S, we will be working on the vertical slice / hi-fi prototype of this game as a startup studio. Hopefully getting a collaboration during or after IMT&S.
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New game idea
Our current idea for the new game is one with a Puzzle-Adventure theme. It is set in a universe where space travel and exploration is normal, kind of like Star Wars. We aim to develop a game in which players are encouraged to use their imagination for solving puzzles that will take them further into the story. The puzzles will have different approaches to tackle their problem, just like in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
To be able to achieve all our learning goals and to make the game future-proof, we decided to make it support co-op gameplay. Meaning we have to develop everything with a support for networking.
