UW-Whitewater team named first-ever Gaming Showcase Winner
October 03, 2016
Written by Kristine Zaballos | Photo by Craig Schreiner
UW-Whitewater students Katherine Stull, left, and Andrew Condon demonstrate the interactive game they created based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe at the MAGD Expo at UW-Whitewater on Wednesday, May 4, 2016. Also involved in developing the game, which they named "A Dream Within a Dream," was Jeremy Behreandt. Stull said the students worked about 14 weeks on the game, which could be used in schools at the middle school level to supplement a unit on Poe.
A game designed by a University of Wisconsin-Whitewater team took a top award at the ninth annual Wisconsin Science and Technology Symposium in Oshkosh on August 2-3, 2016.
The winning team members — Katherine Stull, Jeremy Behreandt and Andrew Condon — presented their game, "A Dream Within a Dream," designed to interactively teach middle school students about one of Edgar Allan Poe's lesser-known works.
The symposium featured more than 50 student presentations, ranging from improved solar energy conversion techniques to psychological research on aggression, reflecting the breadth of research being done by students and faculty across the UW System. More than 30 judges deliberated over the entries, evaluating intellectual merit, research methods, quality of the students' presentations and significance or potential impact of the project.
New this year to WSTS, a special gaming showcase highlighted some of the impressive computer sciences work being done by students across the UW System. As they planned for the new category, WSTS organizers looking for submissions to the competition contacted UW-Whitewater faculty member A. Bill Miller, an assistant professor of art and design.
"I was excited," said Miller. "They were contacting schools that have gaming programs and specifically wanted something that included art or music. I immediately thought of the two-semester capstone class, where students have an opportunity to collaborate on something longer term, because it's hard to build a game from start to finish in one semester."
Stull, a senior majoring in media arts and game development, was taking the capstone class when she conceived the idea for the game and approached classmate Behreandt.
"Jeremy has a degree in poetry," said Stull. "And I knew I wanted to do something literature-based."
With classmate Andrew Condon on board, the team focused on selecting a piece that would be not too well known but still popular enough to be taught in the middle school curriculum. "The Masque of the Red Death," written by Poe and first published in 1842, is a short story in the Gothic tradition. The biggest challenge, according to Stull, was trying to incorporate the text into the game's design without it seeming like an interactive storybook.
The resulting game, which took about three months to complete, has the player moving a Poe-like figure through a broodily dark landscape that helps to bring the words and meaning of the story to life. The title "A Dream Within a Dream" was chosen because the character representing the author moves through a dream sequence and as an allusion to another of Poe's works.
"It's meant for students with lower reading comprehension or a lack of interest in language arts," said Stull. "Jeremy went though the original text and pulled out what was essential to understanding the poem, avoiding some of the higher-level vocabulary. It was important to us to show, rather than tell, the meaning behind the piece."
Stull, who plays violin and draws and paints, contributed artwork and background music to the game. Condon provided the lighting and the animations, and Behreandt did the coding and created some of the games other "assets."
Both Behreandt, who received a Bachelor of Science in media arts and game development, and Condon, who earned a Bachelor of Science in MAGD with a minor in art, graduated in May 2016. Behreandt has since returned to campus as a lecturer in communication.
New Berlin native Stull, who will graduate in May 2017, came to campus expecting to study to be an English professor. After trying several majors within the College of Arts and Communication, she discovered MAGD, eventually holding leadership positions within the program, including producer of Gamezombie.tv and president of Whitewater League of Legends club. The skills she learned within the MAGD program have helped her obtain freelance writing positions with Los Angeles-based Riot Games, U.K.-based Team Dignitas Ltd. and The Daily Dot eSports, an Austin, Texas, digital media company covering Internet culture and life on the web.
In addition to winning a top prize in competition, "A Dream Within a Dream" helped Stull's parents understand how her dream of being a game designer was not such a stretch for the former English major.
"It was so exciting to see it come alive," said Stull. "And it showed my parents that game design isn't just about being fun, it can also be useful."