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The 2008 Imagine Cup, Microsoft’s premier student innovation challenge, brought together more than 200,000 students from over 100 countries and regions around the world, focusing on this year’s theme of sustainable development. In addition to competition categories like algorithms, photography, and embedded development, the Imagine Cup also offers students a chance to compete in a new Game Development category – powered by XNA Game Studio.
On July 8th, at the site of the 2008 Imagine Cup Finals in Paris, France, Microsoft announced the finalists. Students from Brazil, Belgium, and Korea took home the trophies in Game Development with innovative eco-focused games made in XNA Game Studio.
We spoke with three members of Mother Gaia Studio from Brazil, the first-place finishers in this year’s Imagine Cup for Game Development, about their game, City Rain, and what it was like to work with XNA Game Studio. Mother Gaia Studio is Guilherme Campos, Helena Van Kampen, Rafael F. Costa, and Túlio Sória.
Q: The Imagine Cup is a big competition; software design, photography, embedded development: why did you choose to make a game?
Rafael: Even before we started at our university, we knew we wanted to make games – not just as a hobby, but as a living. Once we saw that the Imagine Cup had a game development category, we knew we had a chance to work on this dream and build a game. Guilherme and I both made little games for our friends; but this was our first chance to make a big game like City Rain.
Guilherme: We made games about our school, just simple ones: maybe you'd have to fight a monster that looked like one of our teachers, things like that. City Rain is the first big game I've made. I would like to continue to make games like this one.
Q: Once you decided to make a game, how did you come up with game ideas?
Guilherme: When we brainstormed, we decided to search for ideas that were different than other games; not just games where you shoot the bad guys. We wanted a game that was totally different. The idea of the city pieces falling just came to us in a flash! It’s very strange, I know, but sometimes the game ideas come from nowhere, and you've got to believe in those ideas.
Rafael: One of the judges on the competition had the same question; they wanted to know where we got our game idea. It was hard to explain that the idea happened to Guilherme while was just sitting there!
Guilherme: I remember telling people about City Rain very early on, and told them: "it's a game where city pieces fall from the sky". They didn’t understand, it didn’t make sense to them. They just had to see it for themselves.
Q: How long did you have to code City Rain before you had to enter it into the competition?
Rafael:We started in August of 2007, we had the very basic idea of the game. We started coding in the beginning of October. We finished coding by May 2008.
Q: You had four people. How did you split up the work?
Rafael: We had very distinct tasks on the group. We decided that I would learn how to make graphics and animations with XNA Game Studio. Since Guilherme designed the game concept, he made the logic and statistics code that handled all the game rules. Helena was our artist, making sure we had all the sprites and backgrounds and interface art. Túlio did research to help us make the game, as well as coding the audio system.
Guilherme: We all had full-time jobs, so we worked on weekends, and at night – even on our holidays, to code City Rain!
Rafael: I think, given the result – that we got to the finals in Paris; got to see our game played by so many people and complimented by so many people – we got to eat great food in Paris, too – I think my weekends making City Rain were very well-spent!
Q: Had any of you used XNA Game Studio before starting City Rain?
Guilherme: No, this was the first game we ever made with XNA Game Studio. We like XNA Game Studio - it made things very easy; in C++ this game would have been much harder. The only thing that was difficult was making sure we had a good installer that would get City Rain onto peoples' computers, even if those people didn't have XNA Game Studio installed.
Q: How did you learn XNA Game Studio?
Guilherme: We learned a lot with the XNA Creators Club Website. We studied the samples and starter kits, and checked the forums. It was very easy to learn.
Túlio: XNA has a great community - you can find everything you need. I had thought it would be a lot more difficult, but it was easy.
Rafael: We didn't really have to ask questions on the forums because the questions and the answers were already there. We were grateful to everyone that we could count on the forums and the tutorials and samples.
Q: What was the most difficult part of developing City Rain?
Guilherme: The toughest thing was time - we didn’t have a lot of time together, so we had to work separately; this was so difficult!
Rafael: Managing my free time was difficult; I had to learn C# at the same time I was making City Rain! Once I learned how to program in XNA Game Studio, though, it became more straightforward.
Túlio: Guilherme and Rafael said it - the time was the biggest problem! Rafael and I didn't know C# so that was the most critical issue!
Q: Where would you like to see City Rain go from here?
Guilherme: We definitely plan to continue working on City Rain. It needs some improvements to get it ready for market - it was great for a student project, but we'd like to add to it, improve it overall.
Rafael: We plan to make the user interface friendlier, as well as more beautiful.
Guilherme: More challenges, more levels.
Tuilo: More special units!
Q: What's next for Mother Gaia Studio?
Guilherme: Since we took the prize at Imagine Cup this year, we can't go back and compete next year, but we'd still like to be a part of Imagine Cup 2009 in Egypt; maybe we’ll help out with the Game Development track.
Rafael: But we have lots of game ideas and we want to make them into games. We're thinking about hiring people to help make games with us.
Q: Any last words of advice or tips for XNA game developers?
Rafael: I would say: making game is not as easy as playing them; it takes a lot of effort to make a game, it's difficult, but it's so rewarding. When you see everyone playing your game, it makes all the work worth it, so don't give up!
Túlio: You need to use your creativity - when you have an idea, you've got to go with it!
Guilherme: Everybody loves playing games, but I think making games is even better. When you just play games, you are stuck with that game's rules, but when you make games, you make your own rules! Remember, if you create the game you really want to play, then others will want to play it.
City Rain is available for download at Mother Gaia Studio’s website: http://cityra.in. A release to Community Games on Xbox LIVE is also planned.
Learn more about the upcoming 2009 Imagine Cup at http://www.imaginecup.com/
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