SOWN [Award Winners] Museum of Simulation Technology / Albert Shih

TOP For Exhibitor Sense of Wonder Night Award Winners Museum of Simulation Technology / Albert Shih

Museum of Simulation Technology

Albert Shih

|2013 Audience Award, Best Technological Game Award

1What's your background in making games?

I made small games throughout college when I was learning how to program. After I graduated, I went to a grad program at Entertainment Technology Center at CMU to make some more games. And I've just recently graduated.

2How much time did you spend working on the game?

I started with the first idea and prototype of the game in 2012 November. It began as a short 2-week project for a college course. I've been working on it on and off since, but in total I might have spent a year or so working on the game while in school. It feels like I've just started though.

3How did you come up with the concept?

I came up with the concept when I was trying to sleep. I was trying to come up with an idea that I could implement in 2 weeks and still be interesting. Since I couldn't do art, I knew the game would probably involve objects as simple as a white cube. How do I move plain white cubes around in an interesting way? I thought of a few ways by changing velocity, but it was all too complicated. Then I had the thought, "why don't you just put it down?" It didn't make any sense, so I started thinking about it some more and came up with the concept. And then I went to sleep.

4What development tools did you use?

I'm using Unity and other miscellaneous media tools like Photoshop and Maya.

5What were the significant changes from the "old buggy prototype"
you made a year ago?

It's significantly less buggy now! There was a big prototyping phase that went on for a while, and a bunch of weird ideas got implemented. At the moment, I'm trying to build more puzzles and build out the world.

6Have you sold or released the game of your presentation? How did it go?
Let us know what it has gone since then.

The game isn't released yet (and still a few years away), but since Sense of Wonder Night I've shown it at a few places including IGF Student Showcase, GDC's Experimental Gameplay Workshop, The MIX at SIGGRAPH, and IndieCade.

7What is your goal as a game developer?

My goal is to make game experiences that are unique that I would enjoy. And I also want to make sure I grow and be better as a game developer. I think any game developer able to fulfill those goals - and have enough to eat - are quite lucky.

8Please send a message to game developers who is joining SOWN
with his game!

SOWN was the first time I showed my game to a lot of people, but the experience gave me confidence to carry the concept on further. For the first time, I felt that I could make it as a game developer. I think SOWN is a great opportunity for game developers who have a cool concept or a slice of game and are just starting out. A lot of great games debuted at SOWN, including Antichamber, Unfinished Swan, and Memory of a Broken Dimension.

Kyoto: by Eddie Lee|2013 Best Arts Award

The game "Kyoto" was a homage to the beautiful city that I've lived in. When I first moved there, I was so in awe of the beauty and majesty of the city that I wanted to pay homage to it in the only way I knew how -- which was to make a interactive game experience out of it!

Miegakure: by Marc ten Bosch|2014 Best Experimental Game Award

I had the idea for a hyper-dimensional game in college, maybe around 2005? When you program a 3D game, every object’s position is represented using three numbers (usually called x, y and z), but that concept easily generalizes.

Mirage: by Mario von Rickenbach|2013 Best Experimental Game Awards

Mirage was first of all an experiment with the goal to create an interesting character. From that starting point I started developing the world and the visual style around it.

8BitMMO: by Robby Zinchak|2014 Best Technological Game Award

Ultima Online was the first MMO I played when I grew up. It was very impressive to see so many players all across the world play the same game! I wanted to be able to build the world together with my friends. I began building early builds of a game that allowed multiple people to build in the world together. It was very basic, but even early on it was fun to build together.

PICOLECITTA: by TECO|2014 Best Presentation Award

I frequently played video games with my friends and family. In that setting, the question that was always in the back of my mind was whether there was a game that more people could enjoy playing together.

To Exhibit [Deadline for Applications] May 29(Fri) [Exhibitor Briefing] July 1(Wed) Download TGS 2015 Exhibit Data(PDF)

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