The road to becoming a video game designer can be a long one.

For Steve Chiavelli, the road was 2,913 miles.

To pursue his game-programming dreams, Chiavelli traveled that distance from the Hopewell Junction home where he grew up to Redmond, Wash., where he enrolled in post-graduate classes at DigiPen Institute of Technology, a school specializing in computer animation and engineering.

"I heard about (DigiPen) while I was attending Rutgers," Chiavelli said. "I finished Rutgers with the dream of going out there in mind."

His plan to move nearly 3,000 miles away, however, was not a widely-popular scheme.

"I didn't want him to go so far away," Steve's mother Gina said of her feelings at the time. "I was hoping he could find what he wanted closer to home.

"He knew more than I did," she said. "He knew where he would have to go to achieve what he wanted."

Now, three years after moving out west, the 28-year-old's dreams have become reality.

As a junior at DigiPen last year, the Our Lady of Lourdes High School and Rutgers University graduate began work on a class project creating a computer game with four other students.

What the group came up with was a "fast-paced capture the flag game" that they called "Toblo."

Playing in teams, either as the "Cloud Kids" or the "Fire Friends," the object of the game is to bust into the other team's forts and steal their three flags. The forts are made up of blocks that can be dismantled or thrown around.

Innovative play

"It was kind of a new game idea that hadn't been done before, that the world is completely destructible," Chiavelli said. "Normally if you have a capture the flag game, you go into the enemy's base and get the flag. In this one you bust right into the base and grab it — and you can use anything as weapons."

The game's originality was not lost on those who played it. In June, Chiavelli's group entered "Toblo" into the Northwest Games Festival in Portland, Ore., and came away with first prize. Then, in September, "Toblo" was named the winner of the "Best Game on the Go" category in the Intel Game Demo Contest, earning Chiavelli's group a $30,000 prize.

The fine-tuning of the game only finished in September, in order to meet the submission date for the Independent Games Festival next March.

But more importantly, what did the team's teacher think of "Toblo?"

"We all got A's, our teacher was a big fan," Chiavelli said.

Chiavelli's professor enjoyed the game so much that he tried to help the team make more money off of "Toblo."

"He has worked at Microsoft, he was trying to get us interested in putting it on Xbox Live," Chiavelli said. "But, DigiPen owns all the publishing rights to the game."

In fact, DigiPen reserves the rights to any game created for their classes.

"When you go to DigiPen, that's one of the agreements you make," Chiavelli said. "They use the games to promote the school. They get people interested through the games."

Currently at DigiPen's homepage, www.digipen.edu, "Toblo" is prominently displayed as the "Feature Student Project" and can be downloaded. However, while his game is still with the school, Chiavelli is not.

Turned pro early

With still a year of classes to go before graduating from DigiPen with a Bachelors of Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation, Chiavelli received a job offer from 5th Cell, a video game designing company, and he joined the working world.

"I make games for the Nintendo DS, I'm working on one called 'Drawn to Life'," Chiavelli said. "I started there in May as an intern, and they offered me a job to keep going and finish up on the game."

The game will utilize the Nintendo DS' stylus pen, allowing players to not only draw the main characters they will use in the game, but also other items like plants, buildings and animals in order to rebuild a village.

"We built a skeletal animation system that will take what you draw and use it as you run around the levels," Chiavelli explained.

Just like "Toblo," the most notable part of "Drawn to Life" is just how fresh the idea is.

"That's why I'm really excited about it, it's bringing new and different ideas to the forefront," Chiavelli said. "That's what I'm really interested in."

Now settled in Bellevue, Wash., Chiavelli plans to stay out west and return to school after completing "Drawn to Life."

"I really like it out here, I think I found one of the only places on the west coast that's a lot like home," he said. "It's really a smaller scale city. It's not as small scale as Hopewell, but it's pretty close. And I definitely don't miss winter!"

With Chiavelli's video game dreams becoming more tangible by the day, his father, Richard, is simply impressed with his son's commitment throughout.

"He's amazing, I'm very proud of him. He was focused on what he wanted to do," Richard Chiavelli said. "When he went to Rutgers and got his degree, he knew it wasn't enough to do what he wanted to do. He always worked hard at achieving what he wanted to do."

Of course, Steve Chiavelli is not planning on stopping that hard work anytime soon.

"The plan long term is definitely to have a company with few of my closest DigiPen friends, hopefully within the next two or three years."

And whatever games Chiavelli's company comes up with will likely be unlike any that came before.

Post a Comment This article does not have any comments associated with it

Mike Benischek can be reached at mbenisch@poughkeepsiejournal.com