Interview With Immunity Challenge Contestant

NYCGI sits down with Kevin Harper to chat about his Muse Games Immunity prototyping contest entry. Also find out where to go to check out the games and how to cast your vote inside!

The Muse Games Immunity Contest required teams to submit simple Unity-based prototypes demoing their game concept. The community will be able to play the games and judge its primary mechanic. The top 5 concepts will be granted "immunity" and evaluated by the Muse team for a chance to win $10,000 and an opportunity to turn it into a full released game.

Voting ends this week so be sure to check out all the contestants and cast your vote at the following link: http://musegames.com/community/immunitychallenge/

We chatted with Kevin Harper, former Muse intern about his entry, "Nokizaru" to find out about his experience with the contest.
 
NYCGI: So Kevin, tell us a bit about yourself. Where did you hear about the contest and why did you decide to enter?

KH: I've been a game enthusiast since age seven or so, and while working as a lifeguard in New York City, I played Everquest all the time and thought it would be fun to make a game myself. I decided to go and study Graphic Design/Digital Media. My main motivation was to learn 3D but I'm happy that I learned about a lot of other useful tools, Combustion, Flash and so on. After school I wanted to jump right into the video game industry, but competition was tough. As my passion grew, people told me you needed to move to the West Coast to work in games. But.... But… I love New York!

A job opportunity came up in 3D TV Broadcast animations where I worked on shows like Discovery Channel's Stunt Junkies and had to model and render architectural interiors. That led to a better job at a 3D Architecture Rendering Studio. I wanted to get into games, but my demo reel could only show 3D Architecture Renderings. I fell into this Catch-22 and after 3 years of architecture, I decided it was time to really go after what I want to do. So instead of looking for another well-paying 3D Architecture Render Artist position, I looked for a non-paying internship to get some game related stuff in my demo reel.

I was able to get an internship with Muse Games. While there I made the trailer for Guns of Icarus which became very popular on Gametrailers.com and had 28 thousand views. It was also during my time at Muse that I found out about the contest but didn't consider entering until I was nearing the end of my internship. I never told the people at Muse Games that I was planning to enter. When they saw that I had submitted my concept, the email response was, "Kevin! You sneaky Ninja!”

NYCGI: Well that explains why you chose Ninja as your theme! Any other reasons you decided to go with a Ninja focused game?

KH: Well first, I love Ninjas and martial arts! This is going to be the second time I'll be a Ninja for Halloween. Not because it’s such a great costume, but because I love to jump around and climb on things and Halloween is the perfect excuse to do so.
 
I'd played Everquest (the first one) for about 2 years and have been playing World of Warcraft since beta. Now I'm a little sick of magic and the ability to hit a target 50 times with a sword and just watch it's health bar drop. I want to make Nokizaru because it's the type of game I want to play. As a combat heavy game, the skill would not come from your character, but directly from the player. You'd learn abilities but there would be no levels, and you'd know every move in the game but if someone comes out of the shadows behind you and you don't see them, you're dead. I really want to play a game where you have control over what your character does while fighting. Like Street Fighter, but with character progression as well as objectives to accomplish.

 
NYCGI: Cool, did your experience playing MMO's have any other influence on your concept?
 
KH: Even though the game won't be an MMO, playing MMOs for all these years I learned that shared adventure is a lot more fun than solo adventure. If it wasn't for my guild in WoW, I would have stopped playing a long time ago. This is why, in Nokizaru, you'll be able to create Ninja Clans, or group up with another ninja that happens to be doing the same thing as you, and go to a more difficult district of a city together to take out high value, heavily guarded and well fortified targets
 
There's also no health bars in Nokizaru. If you get hit with a katakana, you're dead. Now this doesn't mean that every fight will only last a second, but if you have 2 experienced players who know their opponent's attacks, they'll be able to react to them (block, dodge, and counter) but unlike in the current demo, nothing will be automatic. This will be a game of skill and adventure. You may not have to be good at combat if you’re good at stealth. People can't block what they can't see coming.

NYCGI: So beyond an internship at Muse, tell us a little more about your experience, both with Unity and otherwise. How did you get your demo up and running?
 
KH: I'm a 3D artist with very little knowledge of Unity. The only experience I had with programming was from action script 1.5.  I've done small flash games but my programming knowledge really doesn't go further than "IF" statements. Until recently, I thought Java was short for JavaScript, so I knew nothing here. But I have to give it up to sites like LearnMeSilly.com where you can watch very detailed videos on how to make things work for you in Unity. And then with the power of Copy and Paste, I was able to stitch together enough code to make this demo work. I also learned a lot in the process about Unity and Javascript.  

Zipquest (another game in the contest) impressed me with the functionality and animation of their character. I looked up who made the game and found out that it's the same person who entered BoxGame in the Annual Unity Contest, Sophie Houlden. I remember how impressed I was with the programming in the BoxGame when I tried it, so I contacted Sophie and showed her a very early stage of my concept and told her that if I were to win, she would get 50% if she wanted to join. She was on board.

Also, before I earned my degree in Graphic Design, I had an internship at an animation studio in New Jersey.  I met a concept artist who was freelancing there at the time, we became friends and his work never fails to impress me. I told him about the concept and asked if he could draw a Ninja for me so that I would have a main character for the demo. He did and wanted to be on board for the rest of the game, so now we got Bowen Jiang, aka BowenJ.

So now we have the team, and if we get the funding from this contest, I know we'll create a great game. I'm looking forward to sharing it with the New York community.

NYCGI: Thanks so much for your time Kevin and best of luck in the contest!

 
To test the demo for Nokizaru and cast your vote in the contest please visit: http://musegames.com/community/immunitychallenge/

To learn more about Kevin and watch a "making of" video for the demo please visit: http://www.harperations.com/