They got game

How to suceed in business while playing around

Strategy and skill earned three college juniors a firm handshake from Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling. The students from Worcester's Becker College recently won the first-ever Massachusetts Game Challenge hosted by 38 Studios, a Maynard-based media and entertainment company that Schilling founded in 2006. The contest called on students in the growing academic major of video game design to take a crack at inventing a game starring the company mascot, a little green monster named Munch.

The top three finishers in the contest, which aims to promote 38 Studios to young talent entering the gaming industry, won prize money and the opportunity to have their games featured on the company website, 38studios.com. While the games will not be mass-produced, Schilling and his team at 38 Studios hope it will encourage the young designers to apply for a job down the road at their growing company.

"The Boston area is a growing hotbed of game development," Schilling said. "This contest encourages students to demonstrate their talents, as well as raise awareness of what it takes to release a product into the competitive video game industry. We wanted college-age kids going into the video game industry to know the best career for them is right here in Maynard."

The winning game, called Munch's Vacation, harkens back to games of the early 1990s such as Super Mario Brothers. Munch bounds to and from suspended platforms and over obstacles on a sinking ship. Its creators - Andrew Silvernail, Patrick Walley, and James Grant - designed three levels with dozens of characters in just a month. To do it they used algebra, statistics, advanced computer programming, Web design, and animation, all courses they took in Becker's new interactive entertainment major, with a concentration in computer game design.

"Like baseball, it's a dream job for these kids that takes an immense amount of work and responsibility," said Schilling, who said he will wait until he retires from baseball to release 38 Studios' first video game. "You don't come into work and play World of Warcraft all day long."

Students from the winning team, along with second-place winners from New Hampshire Technical Institute and the third-place finishers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, will be among the first graduating classes to major in video game design at their respective schools.

Brett Close, 38 Studios president, said the company wanted to promote itself while energizing local engineers, artists, designers, and marketers to show off their skills and gain recognition. He and Schilling plan to make the challenge an annual event. "It's great for everyone involved and gives motivated students a direct opportunity to be a part of the 38 Studios team," Close said.

In February, while he and his colleagues sorted through 50 entries at the company headquarters in Maynard, Schilling did his judging in the only spare time he had, from Florida during spring training.

"When spring training finished, I didn't hang around the ballpark looking for autographs every day," said Schilling, who is an avid gamer. "I spent my time going through a laundry list of entries. They were the best. I played all the games. My kids played all the games. I don't know if it speaks to my immaturity or their maturity."

The three finalists were invited to the Maynard headquarters recently to collect their prize from Schilling. The first-place team members took home $3,000 each, the second-place teammates earned $2,000 each, and the third-place squad got $1,000 apiece.

"You say, 'I want to make video games for a living,' but you never really think it could happen. I guess now it's starting to seem a lot more real," said Walley, who added that the team didn't begin designing Munch's Vacation until a month after the contest was announced.

In some ways, though, they came into the contest with a lead on the others.

"We're all roommates," Silvernail said. "But James and I knew each other before college. We met online in a game called Counter-Strike. We became friends on voice chat, and decided to go to college together."

Next the trio hopes to make the team at 38 Studios.

"I may not go to Red Sox games a lot," Grant said. "But I know I want to work for Curt Schilling after graduation."