The #1 highlight of Vancouver Film School’s Game Design program is the opportunity for aspiring game designers to create a retail-ready game for their career portfolio (all in just 1 short year, no less!). This collaborative endeavour is the ultimate display of student talent to the industry; they join forces with VFS’s Programming for Games, Web & Mobile and Sound Design for Visual Media - and even occasionally our 3D Animation & Visual Effects, Animation Concept Art, and Writing for Film, Television & Games - to bring their visions to life.
The end result is always stunning – so stunning, in fact, that it’s often award-winning! We’re thrilled to announced that Project: Haste ,created by 5 VFS Game Design students, has been nominated for Best Student Project at the Unity Awards, one of the highest honours in the game industry. This is not the first nomination for VFS students at the Unity Awards. In fact, Vancouver Film School has a long-standing history of recognition with Unity. Project: Haste marks the 8th nomination and a potential 5th win for VFS students. Previously, our Game Design students have won Best Student Project for Pulse, The Cluckening, Afloat, and Meowmentum Mori, the latter of which took home last year’s award.
View the trailer below:
Project: Haste is a fast-paced, first-person arena shooter game. Players compete in the Haste League and use high-tech suits to master parkour movement, maintain high speed, and control up to three unique weapons in a battle to eliminate their competition. The player who eliminates the most opponents by the end of the match is the victor. The game was created by alumni Sergio Lisuardi (Project Manager/Designer), Trex Bhai (Level Designer/Audio POC), Connor Roberts (Programmer/Technical Designer), Chevi Hernandez (Character Artist/UI, UX Designer) and Jose Andres Lopez (Environment Artist/Weapon Artist). External collaborators include Declan Johnson (SFX and Music) and Raashi Koka (Voice Actor).
Each year, Unity Technologies recognizes excellence in the video game industry, from desktop/console to mobile games and beyond. The prestigious Unity Awards celebrate creative and technical excellence in Unity-powered games, highlighting the incredible possibilities of the software development company’s game engine. The public can vote in most categories, which are divided into three sections: Games, Asset Store (i.e., game design applications), and Community (i.e., content creators).
This year, Unity is switching things up! For the first time in the history of the Unity Awards, the ceremony will be live streamed on October 23 at 7 p.m. CET (that’s 10 a.m. in Vancouver) on YouTube and Twitch. In addition to the winners being announced, Unity will also be sharing community news & updates.
Prepare to put friendships on the line as you duke it out in Project: Haste. We caught up with the Project: Haste team to talk about how they created their Unity-nominated game, their time at VFS, and what’s next in their careers:
Congratulations on your nomination; this is HUGE! How does it feel to be recognized for your incredible work?
CR: It honestly boggles my mind. Very early in the project we made it a goal for ourselves to be considered for the Unity awards; we studied previous nominees, made lists of requirements for ourselves, and kept our nose to the grindstone to make it happen. I am so proud of the team and everything we have accomplished together, and I hope this is just the beginning for us.
JL: It’s absolutely incredible and a dream come true for all of us. I still remember our very first meeting with the team where we set ourselves a bar that seemed like a silly and impossible feat. Every time we felt a dip in motivation, we’d remind ourselves of our goal. We are all tremendously proud of what we have achieved as a team.
TB: Surreal and exciting. Accomplishments like this before entering the program were fantasies. These dreams however turned into possibilities through the belief from VFS, friends, family, team, and myself.
SL: If you had told me this is where I would be at the start of VFS, I would have laughed in your face. What we as a team have managed to achieve in such a short period is a huge accomplishment and we all hold the project very dearly to our hearts.
CH: It feels great to carry the torch that other VFS games have passed on. It took countless hours of hard work, but we have the team and the project to thank for the motivation to keep pushing forward. From the beginning, we knew we wanted to create something great, so we made sure to become a unified team with a single goal.
What was the inspiration behind Project: Haste? How did its concept come together?
CR: The two biggest inspirations are definitely Titanfall 2 and Quake. We often say our game is the child of these two games… if we gave that child caffeine, you get Project: Haste! Originally, we were planning for Project: Haste to take place in an optimistic Neo-Edwardian Metropolis, but we realized we needed a smaller map. We cut features that no longer fit that vision and were left with a game we can all be proud of.
JL: The game drew inspiration from a big mix of other titles for different categories, like art, UI, gameplay, map design, and weapons. The actual gameplay mechanics/general concept didn’t change too much; however, the finer mechanics and art style went through lots of iterations. Our biggest takeaways were A) Don’t be afraid to remake and restart, and B) If it doesn’t add to the game, icebox it.
TB: Most of the team grew up playing shooters and we were itching to make a simple and fast paced one that delivered fun. Titanfall 2 and Black Ops III were two of the preliminary references, but we dipped our feet into many others like Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, and Quake.
SL: We wanted to take the fast-paced arena combat of older games like Quake and add a splash of the wall run and smooth movement. Meowmentum Mori, last year’s winner from VFS, was a big inspiration for us too. We loved the feel and the flowy movement of their game, and we used a lot of that as a reference to create Project: Haste.
CH: Project: Haste is truly a blend of all our favorite games brought together. The concept was born from following the principles of simple design, combined with a high level of polish and carefully thought-out content.
How was the process of actually making the game?
CR: The process of working with this team has been incredible. We set clear boundaries early on to ensure every member understood their role and responsibilities. Every one of us has touched almost every part of the game at one point or another, and I can truly say this is the only group I have every enjoyed working collaboratively with.
JL: Working on this game was truly the most amazing experience we’ve ever had regarding working as a team. We had a bit of a bump to get over at the start; having a shaky first couple of weeks really gave us a quick reality check. It was hard to not be carried away by our imaginations. We had to be selective in order to not over scope the project.
TB: Actual wizardry. The craft bleeds me dry and while it’s exhausting and difficult all the time, it is what drives me. But I could not be able to stand here without my team. Be it through motivational cheers or inspiring me through their sheer commitment and skill my team is a superhero ensemble.
SL: It was a wonderful experience. Our team is full of passionately driven individuals who have extremely creative ideas and solutions that we would love to implement, but we understood that to create the best game we could, we needed to focus on a few quality features with a lot of polish, rather than a lot of different features that lack proper feedback and polish.
CH: The team definitely brought out the best in one another. We allowed our imaginations to run wild because we knew that’s how we would eventually strike gold. Once we had a solid set of mechanics, we focused on how we could build upon them.
Can you describe your experience at VFS?
CR: It honestly boggles my mind. Very early in the project we made it a goal for ourselves to be considered for the Unity awards; we studied previous nominees, made lists of requirements for ourselves, and kept our nose to the grindstone to make it happen. I am so proud of the team and everything we have accomplished together, and I hope this is just the beginning for us.
JL: VFS has truly surpassed my expectations, from the things I learned, to the amazing instructors and mentors, to the friends I made. It was a tough decision for me to come here and leave my life behind, but I knew this was really the next step for me to achieve what I really wanted in life, and that was to make video games. I’d say my biggest takeaway is just how important it is to be able to work as a team.
TB: Holy moly, right out the gates VFS hits you like a shooting star. From the get-go they had me fighting for my life with how intense they are. The care, attention, and critique are what got me to keep at it. Even after graduating, a few words from the designer/instructors fuel me like nothing else.
SL: I learned more in 5 months here than I did in 4 years of high school. Coming into VFS, I was a fresh high school graduate who had almost 0 experience in the development of video games. From the moment I stepped onto campus, I was challenged to learn and create in a way I had never been before. I felt the passion of everyone in the building, this love of video games, and creating memorable experiences for players. The instructors had a wealth of knowledge that showed their veteran status in the industry, and they always did their best to help students reach their goals. I don’t regret a single moment of the program.
CH: If I had to describe it in one word, it would be “life changing.” Just as coal turns into diamonds under pressure, Project: Haste wouldn’t exist without the tight deadlines we faced. It was a year of personal growth for me, and learning how I handle pressure helped me iron out some of the bad habits I had, both inside and outside of game development.
Project: Haste and countless other VFS student-created games are available to play online in the VFS Arcade.If you have an unquenchable hunger for gaming like this writer, Project Haste and 100+ other games created by VFS students are available for play for free online via VFS Arcade. And, if you’re interested in following in the footsteps of our latest Unity-nominees and training to become an industry game designer, you can learn all about VFS’s award-winning Game Design program (ranked #1 in Canada by Princeton Review Journal!) here.
As for what’s next for the Project: Haste team, they have big plans to take the game even further. Currently, they’re pitching it to publishers which means a full revamp of the game. Congratulations to our incredible Game Design students on their big nomination. We’ll be trying every cheat code we know to help them secure the win on October 23!