New High Score: Recent Bradley Alums Win Game Award

Kadin White ’24 and Alex Koeberl ’24 felt an air of familiarity when they stepped into the Midwest Game Industry Conference (MDEV) in Madison, Wis. The whole event felt a lot like FUSE, the BU Interactive Media department’s end-of-year showcase in which students run booths where they share the large-scale projects they’ve been working on.

“Having the FUSE experience under my belt made me feel comfortable presenting our game to about 1,000 strangers,” Koeberl explained. “But when Kadin and I went up on stage to claim the award, I was trying not to look into the crowd because I thought I’d start shaking from nerves.”

Winning the Best in Showcase Student Entry for 2024 was a long time coming for the developers of SoulSync City, a video game where players rely on fast, agile movements to dodge attacks and outmaneuver opponents, inspired by the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 and Neon White.

“SoulSync City was fully developed in IM 459 and 489, Game Capstone 1 and 2,” White said. “However, you take a class in the back half of your junior year in which teams make a total of 12 prototypes by the end of the semester. When we started the capstone, our whole team based SoulSync City off of one of those prototypes, which developed and changed during the 23-24 school year.”

During this process, what started as a prototype about a space pirate turned into a fleshed-out game about a rebel traversing a cyberpunk city to escape an evil AI. The game was developed by a 25-person interdisciplinary team of designers, artists, and programmers, with added help from the theatre department for voice actors and the music department for a composer. Things weren’t always smooth sailing, however.

“The fun of developing a game in your final year of undergraduate studies is you think you’ve probably made all the mistakes you can,” Koeberl said. “That’s when you hit the peak of Mt. Stupid, because there will always be mistakes to make. One of those mistakes was developing our game as an open-world project, meaning one giant level, until we realized we were in way over our heads.”

But, by pivoting toward smaller levels halfway through the development cycle and leaning on each other and their Bradley professors for guidance, SoulSync City came together.

“My professors helped me become a stronger designer, but more importantly I learned how to be someone who can support my team members while still contributing my own ideas,” Koeberl said. “IM faculty members are absolutely phenomenal, and they inform their teaching styles with their experiences.”

Koerberl served as creative director and White as lead producer on the project, with both being quick to emphasize the massive amount of work from the SoulSync City team over the course of production. As they put it, the MDEV win was truly a team effort. 

With Koeberl currently working on his masters in game design and development at Bradley, further development of the game is at a standstill. But, you probably haven’t heard the last of SoulSync City.

“After the win, we are exploring IP ownership opportunities with the rest of the team and potentially continuing development and expanding it further,” White said. “But, we have no active development plans at this time.”

Those interested in playing SoulSync City can find it here.

–Jenevieve Rowley-Davis

Like this story? We've got lots more at Here's the Latest.