Tyler Buczek: Video Game Producer

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The Computer game Design Program at Mason holds an annual event called the Senior Game Expo in which all the seniors present their games to everyone and anyone that attends the event. We set up in Dewberry hall on the bottom floor of the Johnson Center with a bunch of computers for all the students to set up their games. There is always awesome music, food and drink, and a great set of themed props (usually donated by the theater department). This year’s Senior Game Expo was a blast. The past two years, I attended the event as a volunteer and each year all I could think of was how fun it was going to be when I was finally a senior. Well, the time finally came and I couldn’t be more proud of my team.

Our game, Chef’s Adventure, was a long work in progress and we each had a hand in making it great. Seeing it on display was a great culmination of all we had accomplished this year and throughout our careers at Mason. But our game was not the only one on display; it was amazing to see all the games the other students put together. Just like with our game, the progress each group made on theirs was so much fun to watch. If you get a chance, I highly recommend attending the next Senior Game Expo at Mason next Spring.

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Every year, George Mason University’s School of Art holds a fundraiser for the school called Off the Wall. Essentially, members of the local art community are welcomed to come view the work of the students and teachers who participate in the fundraiser. The works are all hung up inside the Art and Design Building’s gallery, and viewers are encouraged to purchase the work literally off the wall.

This year, I was privileged enough to represent the Computer Game Design Program during the event. Several other students and I set up shop in the computer lab above the gallery and displayed our games for all of the guests to view and play. It was a fun evening, and we got to meet some amazing people. Representatives from Nintendo of America came by, as well as the president of the university Angel Cabrera. All the students who represented their games were grateful for the opportunity to get feedback from the community. I know my team and I appreciated it; we have been thinking about progressing Let’s Play a Game further and possibly making it available on smartphones and people at the event had a blast with our current build. Maybe this will be the push that we need to actually develop it!

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Last Saturday I worked as an administrative volunteer for Jamtech 11 hosted by Carney Inc. at the US Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, VA. jamtech is a now bi-anual event where students from surrounding schools can come and build a game in a day with the help of the qualified volunteers. This spring the event was a sold-out success, and the venue was packed with several hundred students and volunteer helpers from Carney, Carney Labs, the Computer Game Design Program at George Mason University, and members from Little Arms Studios.

It was great seeing what the students could come up with over the course of the day and the final presentation was an excellent showcase of the progress each student made. I had an enjoyable time meeting the staff members at Carney and working with my fellow students from GMU and the folks from Little Arms Studios. I hope that I have the opportunity to work at Jamtech again in the future.

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This year was the first time I attended the East Coast Game Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. The event was impressive and is growing every year. This year they hosted a plethora of studios, ranging from triple A studios, such as Epic Games and Bioware, to indie studios like Pie for Breakfast Studios. They even included tech giants such as IBM and some higher education panels like Wake Tech Community College. The keynote speaker, Bioware’s Dragon Age Creative Driector Mike Laidlaw, delivered a thoughtful analysis on Dragon Age Inquisition and its successes and failures stemming from its new open world design.

Over the course of the three day conference, I attended over a dozen seminars all teaching me something new about making games or discussing career opportunities in the industry. Whether it was learning how to make 2D games in Unreal 4 from an Unreal 4 engineer or deliberating about how video games are an art from with American University’s Chris Totten, the East Coast Game Conference delivered a stimulating and refreshing experience. If you are a student or game developer on the East Coast and you are interested in meeting new people in the industry, learning cutting-edge mechanics for design, or having a scholarly debate on where the video games industry stands as a whole I would highly recommend attend next year’s East Coast Game Conference.

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A few days ago, Matthew Argueta and I visited Epic Games Studio in Cary, North Carolina. Matt’s friend and Developer Support Manager for Unreal 4, Sean Palomino, showed us around the campus. I have to say it is far and away the most impressive work environment I have ever seen. Epic is known for their appreciation for their employees and it really shows in the way they chose to set up their headquarters in Cary. Sean showed us around the whole studio and we got to see where Epic hosts their quality assurance testers, the state of the art developer offices, and the Unreal 4 support team live stream studio. Seeing a large game development studio like this in person really gets me excited about starting my career as a producer. Thanks again to Sean and Matt for the awesome opportunity.