Education Feature: 'Student Game Profile: Cynosure'

Author: by Beth A.

Today's Gamasutra educational feature, part of the expanded Gamasutra Education section of the site, details the gameplay decisions made by Carnegie Mellon graduate Arnab Basu in constructing a student game. As part of the Experimental Gameplay project at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, Basu worked on a game titled Cynosure, which uses the concept of blinking as a game mechanic (to charge up the player's weapons power) in a game in which the player must destroy zombies advancing towards him in a graveyard. Basu introduces his game in the following excerpt: "The idea of the game was to have players view the gamescape through a supernatural eye. The fundamental game-play mechanic was the ability to blink. The concept behind the game, keeping in mind the theme of ‘violate’, originally evolved from the behavior associated with Peeping Tom-ism. Cynosure was created on the OpenGL/C++ platform in a one week development cycle, where as game producer, I was responsible for all aspects of design, code and artwork." You can read the full Gamasutra educational feature on the topic to find out what went right and what went wrong in the making of Cynosure (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).