Three students developed a virtual reality archery game that has been released on STEAM, a video game digital distribution service.

The students participating are Andrew Thomas, junior digital entertainment technology major from Spring, Caleb Jackson, junior digital entertainment technology major from Weatherford, and Bryce Gattis, an alumni computer science major.

The idea for this game originated as a class project idea pitched by Jackson for the trio to accomplish for their final project. The game these students created is named Hold Your Ground.

For the spring semester, the project is the product of work for DET 310 with Dr. Brian Burton, associate professor of digital entertainment and information technology.

“It’s just how game design works,” Jackson said. “It’s more of the professors give us a prompt and we write the essay, except the essay is the project.”

The group chose to build their game using Unreal Engine 4, a game development engine used to create other content such as Fortnite Battle Royale, Gears of War 4, and Borderlands 3.  This group of students had made other types of games for different projects in the past and decided to create and present a different and unique product.

“I wanted to make a VR game,” Jackson said. “I didn’t want to do the same thing over again.”

DET students are given a series of options to choose from based on where their degree path will take them. They are equipped with skills and basics to accomplish their products such as texture, programming, and 3D modeling, but advanced development is left for students to learn and create for themselves.

“Most of the skills we learn are technically learned on our own,” Thomas said. “It’s mainly just us figuring it out by ourselves.”

The students plan to expand to bigger and more complex projects in the future and are open to involving different mediums and consoles.