Senior class member, Roman Nixon, is creating a video game for his senior project, combining in-school and independent work to bring his ideas to life. For Nixon though, this project is more than just an assignment. He plans to publish the game under his company, Vermillion. The Greylock Echo sat down with Nixon to discuss his game, inspiration, challenges, and future plans.
Echo: Can you tell me a little bit about your video game?
Nixon: I’ve been working on it for this entire school year, during school, [and] out of school for about eight months now. It’s my second plan to publish a project. I have [a game] under my current company name that is online, and this would just be the second one.
Echo: You’ve mentioned that this is not your first project. Is this something that you do often?
Nixon: This is not my first commercial project. I’ve been making video games since I was seven. But in terms of my company, and publishing things under that name, I have done two projects, including this one … The older one was shorter and not as detailed, but it was officially published.
Echo: What kind of game are you creating?
Nixon: [In the game, the goal is to] dodge stuff, collect weapons, and make your character stronger … Basically you fight a bunch of big monsters and eventually get strong enough to beat the final monster … [There are] three worlds and then there’s a place where you can make your own worlds and your own … order of [when the] bosses appear.
Echo: And what resources do you use to create a game like this?
Nixon: I mainly use my MacBook because it has software that I need. Specifically, apps-wise, there’s a game development software called Unity. I use a coding program called Visual Studio, a program called Krita, and I use C Sharp. I’ve been using it for around six years and before that, I used it when I made smaller projects. I also used things like Scratch which is important for programming.
Echo: You said that you’ve been working on it for eight months. So when do you anticipate you to be finished?
Nixon: Well, I labeled this as my senior project so technically, the senior project version of it will be done [when] that is due, which is around the end of school year. But realistically, because I need to redo every bit of art in the game and tune some stuff up before I publish it, it should probably be done within the end of summer– maybe mid-summer.
Echo: What inspired you to start making video games?
Nixon: I always enjoyed them and I had my own ideas and just did a ton of research and took any class I could to learn how to bring them to life.
Echo: Have you had any guidance along the way?
Nixon: I’ve had help from videos online but more interestingly I’ve had people who work at places like Google and Amazon help me learn programming.
Echo: Is this something you plan to do more of in the future after high school?
Nixon: I plan to pursue more game design than development, but I don’t plan on stopping when it comes to making my own projects on the side.
