First-year Becker School of Design & Technology student builds text-based video game
Six months after his government contract is complete, the main character in “The Final Door” is on a journey home to his wife. Except the world he left behind isn’t quite the one he navigates now: He faces an apocalyptic setting shrouded in a yellow haze in this text-based game created by Becker School of Design & Technology student Sam Lazuka ’29.
Lazuka, the president and creator of Clark Iron Grip, a competitive arm wrestling club, knows a thing or two about “kicking butt.”
“Who doesn’t want to kick butt in a zombie apocalypse?” quips Lazuka, who feels that the gaming industry has not had many new additions to this subgenre following the explosive popularity of titles such as “The Last of Us.” He wants to change that. In “The Final Door,” players click through a video game environment without visuals, the details left up to Lazuka’s descriptions.
“I’ve become much better at world creation through this process. I have always enjoyed writing – I scored well on my English exams in high school and I love writing poetry – but I never had the opportunity to flesh out my ideas,” says Lazuka, who started “The Final Door” as a class project and is now working on it in his free time. “The player has to be able to visualize entire buildings based on the information I give them.”
In order to give the user freedom, there are different options the player can select to overcome obstacles.
“There’s actually an easter egg for players who are stubborn enough in the first building,” he says. There are two main story endings that players can achieve, though Lazuka notes that the main character can die several times throughout the course of the story, each death with a unique dialogue.
“When the main character dies, I try to emulate the last seven minutes of someone’s consciousness before death – think of the typical ‘memories flashing before your eyes’ montage,” he says
Dedicated to the craft, Lazuka has been tearing through novels this semester to develop his writing skills.
“Writing a novel is a bucket-list goal of mine, and this project has helped me learn how to write more traditionally,” he says. “‘The Final Door’ functions like a game but reads like a book.”
The emotional center of the project, the relationship between the main character and his wife, is based on Lazuka’s own relationship.
“This project is very personal to me. I find it hard to be away from my partner for long stretches of time, so this experience is based on how I think I would feel if I were away for six months,” he says.
Lazuka works in phases: sitting down at his desk, churning through game-writing, then revision, and finally getting feedback and having people play-test “The Final Door.”
Lazuka is working on three other projects this semester in addition to “The Final Door.” He anticipates working in the game design industry after graduation, and hopes to bring his passion for arm-wrestling along the way.
“I live for making stuff,” he says. “I have to do it because it makes me happy.”
