K-Days gets power-up from locally made video games

Locally created video games are being showcased at K-Days this week, giving attendees the chance to experience new worlds created by Edmonton developers.

One of the 20 rotating titles at the TechLife pavilion’s GDX Edmonton booth is Voxeltron 1982. You emerge from one of the edges of your screen with the aim of shooting little green men to gain points. For each one you shoot, more come back in its place. Eventually, the screen fills with them and with no way out, it’s game over.

Mike Mattai, a recent NAIT graduate who studied game development, made Voxeltron 1982 as a class project. His challenge was to upgrade an older video game. He chose a game called Robotron 2020, but Mattai’s version allows up to four people to play.

He said feedback from K-Days attendees has been positive.

“I’ve had the best response from three or four people playing it,” he said.

Logan Foster, who oversees the booth, said feedback is valuable for developers. His own creations appeared this year and last.

“When we were crafting the game last year, we had some internal debates whether or not certain mechanics were fun or people were receptive to them or not,” he said.

He kept a tablet with him and said he recorded feedback that made the game “bigger and better.”

Foster said the booth is drawing a range of age groups. He estimated 300 to 400 people have tested out the games.

“Some people are just stopping by and dabbling a little bit. Others are spending hours here,” he said.

Kody Haule was among a group of four friends Tuesday playing Voxeltron 1982. He said it was a lot of fun, but admits the group wasn’t too successful.

“We got really wrecked by that one dude in the middle who oneshots everything,” he said.