In the video game industry, the term indie stands for independent video games. The developers of these games are independent of large publishers, which encourages innovative gameplay.
DVD Unicorns team - students from the TUL Institute of Information Technology - competed with projects created largely by small and medium-sized companies.
- The interesting thing about the video game business is that you don’t need a large budget to make a successful game. What really matters is a clever idea. This allows student projects like ours to compete with commercial titles – says Filip Izydorczyk, the team’s 3D graphic designer.
The project aroused keen interest among the jurors and conference visitors. It owes its enthusiastic reception to its high technical quality and engaging presentation. But the key to the game's success was the entertaining gameplay experience that kept the players coming back for more.
‘Bzzz! Together in Power’ is a cooperative puzzle game in which players embark on a journey inside a computer. The game mechanics are based on asymmetrical cooperation between two people in the transfer of electrical energy. One player exclusively draws energy from the environment, while the other can return it to the environment, powering various objects to continue the journey.
- A year ago, when the idea for the game was being conceived, it was meant to be a single-player game. Later we figured out that the gameplay we created works great as a cooperative game and since then we've been developing the idea in that direction. We want our game to encourage cooperation and the pursuit towards a common goal – says Filip Izydorczyk.
-Every member of the team contributes different competencies. The combination of various skills, experiences and ideas has enabled us to create a game that can be fun and entertaining even for youngest players – adds Mateusz Majchrzak, the level designer.
The team that went to the competition is only part of the game designer team. DVD Unicorns consists of: Filip Izydorczyk, Karolina Zaborowska, Jagoda Gradek, Mateusz Majchrzak and Filip Mazurek, as well as Bartosz Durys and Mateusz Srebnik, who are not present in the photo. Students emphasize that the university is an important place to meet creative people and carry out projects together, which can be the beginning of a professional career.
-This is not the first success for DVD Unicorns. Their previous projects won other contests, among others, the Nationwide Team-Based Game Development.It turns out that unicorns do exist, and what is more, they specialise in winning international competitions - says Jarosław Andrzejczak, PhD, assistant professor at the Institute of Information Technology.