PEORIA – During the FUSE event on April 29th, Bradley Interactive Media students presented their animations and video games to the public.

And tucked in the back corner on the first floor of the Peoria Riverfront Museum next to the gift shop entrance, sat a unique pinball game. It could have easily gone unnoticed by attendees if it weren’t for the small crowd gathered around the game, phones out as people recorded and excitedly cheered their friends as they battled against opponents.

“VS. Pinball” is a two-player pinball, air-hockey hybrid arcade game in which the objective is to use the flippers to knock the ball into the opponent’s gutter. The table is touch-screen, reminding players of a mobile game. On each table end, there two buttons are placed on the sides of the screen where players can control the flippers.

The game was created by a team of six people, including Bradley IM senior Zachary Abbott.

“Pinball is a dying game, so a lot of kids these days have never played, let alone touched a machine,” Abbott said. “We wanted to make it as easy to play as possible so kids of all skill levels could understand.”

It is a simple concept, but actually excluding it and turning it into a full-fledged game wasn’t as simple as pinball might seem.

Originally, Abbott had been on a different project; he and his team first pitched a Virtual Reality (VR) scavenger hunt with a prehistoric theme. When their idea wasn’t picked up, Abbott’s colleague Stephan Cantero invited Abbott to join his team because he believed Abbott would help speed up the creative process.

“I was going to be away for the Hollywood Semester abroad, so I wouldn’t be around as much and wanted someone I could trust to be on the team,” Cantero, a junior, said.

Eager to be on the same team with a close friend, Abbott joined on.

“When I got onto the project, the game was very different,” Abbott said.

Before VS. Pinball came to fruition, the original concept was to have two normal balls and a golden ball bouncing around that players have to try to shoot and protect against. There were also ideas of a lot of obstacles or ways for players to perform “special moves” that would have caused chaos for opposing players. There had also been discussion of designing the game to look like an actual cross between a pinball machine and an air hockey table.

https://youtu.be/g_u0UDjQdQI

“Since our audience was younger kids, I tried to bring it down a bit and, after some debating, we agreed to tone it down a little,” Abbott said.

Once they figured out how the game was going to work, the team began to create their game. With four animation majors on the team, they were able to lay down the artwork for their game. Meanwhile, Abbott took up the role as the game scripter and programmer. He created most of the coding for the game and was able to incorporate the assets made by his teammates, such as the art and sound, into the game’s engine.  

“We had the game completely functional during the first few weeks of the semester, and because of this, we got to spend a long time on polish,” Abbott said.  

The game took a lot of play testing, Abbott repeatedly having to go back and fix coding if something seemed off. They wanted the gameplay to be easy enough for anyone to play, children and adult alike.  

According to Abbott, the game was a success at FUSE. He said he hopes to use this success as a confidence boost for future projects, especially after college. Since he was a child, Abbott has always been been fascinated by video games. Now as a young adult, he wants to create games that can be enjoyed by people of all ages – perhaps even create games that inspire younger generations to join the gaming industry.

“My top three studios that I want to work for include Blizzard Entertainment, CD Projekt Red, Bioware,” Abbott said. “I plan to work in the industry for 15 to 20 years because I would like to start my own indie company and teach as well.”

For Abbott and many other passionate designers in the industry, video games are more than just pieces of entertainment. Even something like Pinball can mean a world to another person and inspire them to create their own content for others to enjoy.

“Games are the next step forward in many different areas of life including self expression, communication, art … I think games can really make a difference in our world,” Abbott said.

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