Over the past decade, Roblox has inspired millions of young creators to design and build immersive experiences born from the depths of their imagination. While some have gone on to form their own studios, many more are just starting to find their success on the platform. Today, a team of four teenage developers from Washington, D.C. just won the 2017 National STEM Video Game Challenge for their Roblox game, Intervene!
Intervene, the winning game in the Open Platform, High School Team category, was developed by Rusuban (@RusubanRBLX), Omegadarx, Himegimichan, and Zygmeyer. They created a unique Roblox experience complete with its own soundtrack, original art, and fully-realized 3D world. It’s all seamlessly blended together to create an emotional single player adventure with a haunting narrative and enthralling gameplay. In Intervene, players step into the role of a character who comes into contact with a mysterious figure in the afterlife. The character is then given an opportunity to redeem himself by overcoming various trials and tribulations from the perspective of a tribesman in the distant past. It’s a journey of self-realization, and it’s an experience the developers hope will help players reflect on why life is worth living. Watch the gameplay video below to see the first objective of the game:
The team was inspired to take the STEM Challenge after Rusuban asked Himegimichan to help find a competition that involved programming. “In my mind spending time immersed in that type of project would probably be more valuable than the average teenage work experience,” said Rusuban.
When asked about how they came up with the idea for Intervene, Himegimichan said, “[After finding the STEM Challenge,] as a group we agreed on a game concept that was simple but memorable. It’s a concept that stays on your mind and asks you to ponder.”
All four developers are interested in pursuing a career in a STEM field. You can read more about their experience creating Intervene here.
From left to right: Zygmeyer, Himegimichan, Rusuban, Omegadarx
Launched in 2010, the challenge was designed to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) among youth by harnessing their natural passion for playing video games and inspiring them to design games of their own. We, too, believe that empowering kids to create their own games and experiences is a powerful way to promote creative thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. On behalf of Roblox, we’d like to congratulate all the winners of the 2017 National STEM Video Game Challenge and we look forward to seeing even more enthusiastic developers from the community take the challenge next year!
For more information about all the winners and their video game designs, please visit http://stemchallenge.org/2017-winners/.