Rishub Nagpal and Forest Cinelli met three years ago at the Summer Residential Governor's School for Math, Science and Technology and have been friends ever since. This summer they will join forces with designers and artists at the Virginia Serious Game Institute to bring their game "Tree Checkers" to life.
Nagpal, a student in the Volgenau School of Engineering and Cinelli, who attends Worcester Polytechnic Institute, were the youngest entrants at the Dean's Business Plan Competition, and won the inaugural mobile game design competition. The event, held in May at the Crystal City offices of alumnus Paul Singh, was sponsored by the School's of Business and Engineering, the Colleges of Science and Humanities and Social Sciences and brought together students and alumni to pitch ideas and earn prize money.
"We didn't really go into this competition with any expectations," said Cinelli. "We saw the announcement in an email and thought it sounded like fun."
The students started the project at winter break and used their free time to develop the game. They describe it as a game that combines the simplicity of checkers with the strategy of chess.
"We enjoy working on projects together," said Nagpal. We thought creating this game would be a great side project to work on; it was a fun idea and allowed us to grow as programmers"
This summer the two students will gain management experience as they work with James Casey and others at the Virginia Serious Games Institute to flesh out the different elements of the game.
Currently the game consists of simple lines and circles. The students readily admit that they are programmersnot artists. They hope that this summer at the SGI team will develop a persona for the game to make it more fun and exciting for players.