Four Carleton students have created a 3D adventure game for Windows phones called Airborne.
The fourth-year information technology students represent a team called Compass Rose Studios. Project manager and team leader, Meagan Leflar, described Airborne as a fast-paced 3D adventure game that takes modern fascination of the steampunk style to new levels.
“The user flies an airship along the treasure map in order to reach the treasure located at the end,” Leflar said. “Wage aerial battles with air pirates, loot their ships for treasure to purchase speed and gun upgrades to get that extra edge in battle.”
The team was inspired by steampunk, which is a gaming genre growing in popularity, according to Leflar. Specifically, the team also found influence in the movies Pirates of the Caribbean, Atlantis, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Last Exile.
Most of the challenges in designing the game were closely linked to learning new branding platforms, Leflar said.
“We had to get creative with how we constructed and animated our ships,” she said. “It is also always a challenge to keep designs simple enough so that the game runs smoothly.”
Leflar worked alongside programmer Laura Kenney, as well as Lacey Maw and Jaimie Thom, who collaborated on the art portion of the game.
The game was featured Jan. 12 on Go DevMental, Microsoft’s online hub for student developers. At some point, the team hopes to see their game released in the marketplace but they’re “not quite ready to share it with world yet,” Leflar said.
“We want to iron out a few more bugs first and develop a training mode.”
This semester, Compass Rose Studios will be working hard on another game, called Vitality, which will have more material released soon, Leflar said.
