WolverineSoft Studio: Project Sandcastle RTS

Ethan Thompson, College of Engineering & Connor Chen, UMSI

WolverineSoft Studio, a U-M student org, currently has 23 members for 6 departments: Programming, Design, Audio, Art, Marketing, and Production. The WolverineSoft Studio accepts members from all schools, and has both undergraduate and graduate students and recent alumni. Our current project has students from the following schools: College of Literature, Arts, and Sciences College of Engineering School of Information School of Architecture School of Music, Theatre, and Dance Penny W. Stamps School Of Art & Design

Project Sandcastle RTS is the WolverineSoft Studio’s semester-long game development project. Our project is a case study of two games, Starcraft for gameplay, a Real-Time-Strategy based game where you must build up and defend your base while attacking enemy bases, and Cult of the Lambs for artwork, which utilizes bill-boarded style graphics. A multidisciplinary team of 23 students, including artists, programmers, designers, composers, producers, and marketers, collaborate to build an industry level game using Unity. At the end of the semester, the project will be released on itch.io and Steam, as well as being shown off at the EECS 494 student showcase and at IGDA (International Game Developers Association).

Games are, inherently, interdisciplinary. The best games out there are not known for only one of their technical implementation, aesthetic, or music score, but an amalgamation of all those things and more. The WolverineSoft Studio is well structured to take advantage of this. We have developed interdisciplinary processes through years of iteration, and they have kept our projects running smoothly.

Art has a large presence in the final product. At the beginning, Art takes ownership over the theme (the game’s setting, player character, and enemies). Once art determines the theme, they work together with programmers, designers, and musicians to make sure that their art assets are aesthetically pleasing, but also compatible with the game engine and fits with the overall narrative (a collaborative effort between art, design, and audio). Their high quality final art gives our project a unique sense of polish, enabling our members to use the game as an impressive portfolio piece.

Once membership has been determined, each department has a series of onboarding activities curated to get them familiar with a large, multidisciplinary team. We then launch into the first of three development cycles, each one about three weeks. Each cycle involves building and iterating on the content in our game. Finally, we have a polish period, where students get to iterate on their assets. Our project ends officially when we submit to the EECS 494 + EMU Student Showcase at the end of the semester. However, after the project’s end, we submit to different marketplaces, such as Steam and itch.io, and to other showcases, such as IGDA.

The primary impact of the WolverineSoft Studio is the portfolio piece and relevant experience that the project provides. The University of Michigan has game development courses, such as EECS 494 and EECS 498 – Extended Reality; however, they are restricted to upper level computer science majors. Our project enables anyone to gain portfolio-ready experience in game development. Students use the game they create to show recruiters their ability to work on teams, take leadership, and create a polished product. Alumni have used their experience to get hired by many gaming and technology companies, and recruiters from the games industry come to Michigan regularly as a result of the studio.

Although these projects require a lot of overhead, our leadership has the experience and commitment to manage it. All new leadership gets a set of onboarding materials, which includes a set of confluence documents guiding them on their tasks. Our leadership works with industry advisors, who give us advice on the direction and state of the game. We constantly use feedback from our members, which include feedback forms and discussions, to iterate on our organization.