Epic Interns Develop Video Game

Interns Develop Video Game and Earn Scholarships from the epic software group

THE WOODLANDS, Texas -- While most teenagers while away their summer vacation playing video games, five area students spent their summer developing one. The Epic Software Group hosted students from local high schools and colleges and created an incredibly cool web-based training application for Texas A&M University.

The game is designed to help students interactively learn course materials in a way that is both entertaining and fun. While the actual subject matter of the game remains under wraps, the idea is to use the latest video game technology blended with visual storytelling to engage the student in the lesson.

“The tremendous growth of distance learning courses have educators scrambling to find the most effective ways to communicate course materials over the internet” said Vic Cherubini, President of the Epic Software Group. “Edutainment,” a buzz word used to describe the blending of education and entertainment is proving to be an effective way to make complex subjects fun to learn.

Earlier this year, a professor from Texas A&M contacted Epic to see if his game concept could be built in time for a trial run for the fall semester. The program required both 2D and 3D animation, green screen video, and an interactive game and quiz. It is a project that typically would take epic six months to produce, but with the help of the summer interns epic was able to complete the task in half the time.

For over 18 years, epic has hosted interns interested in 2D and 3D graphics, programming, and game and web site development. “This year we were blessed with a group of very talented young people who were eager to help us with this very ambitious project. They really pulled together and got the job done,” said Cherubini. For their efforts, Epic has endowed a $1,000 Scholarship grant to be split between the students. The development team included:

Jay Riley – Jay is a home schooled senior and is also taking courses at Lone Star College. For this project Jay worked on video compositing, special effects, 3D modeling and video compression for the web. Jay also did the post production work on a NASA public service announcement (for the next generation Discovery Mission) which will be broadcast nationwide this fall.

Jeanna Yu – Jeanna worked on the web design and graphical interface for the game portion of the project. She graduated from The Woodlands College Park High School, and will be heading to University of Texas at Austin where she will study business this fall.

Sebastian Andrade – The game takes place on the Texas A&M campus, so it was necessary to model several of the buildings in 3D. Sebastian did the 3D background elements needed for the game, as well as working on a complex technical animation for one of Epic’s oil and gas clients. Sebastian graduated in May from the Wunsche School, and will be entering Lone Star College in the fall.

Josh Bruhn – A skilled programmer, Josh worked on both the game and the quiz sections of the project. He also demonstrated his skills in audio production and handled all of voice recording work on the project. Josh is entering his sophomore year at Texas Tech and is pursuing a degree in Computer Engineering.

Adam Smith – A talented 2D artist, Adam worked on the graphics for the lesson sequence of the project. Working on individual frames for a cartoon based sequence requires both patience and an eye for detail. Adam was home schooled and graduated in May of 2007.

The official announcement for the game will be made this fall by Texas A&M University. Students who are interested in applying for a fall internship at the Epic Software Group are encouraged to visit the “Internship Opportunities” section of the epic web site.