Few slay mechanized villains as part of their daily routine, but at the young age of 25 video game designer Justin Ostensen has discovered a way to do just that.
Born and raised in Powell River, Ostensen recently won the Entertainment Software Association of Canada’s first annual Student Video Game Competition, shown at the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in LA in June.
“It was enormous,” said Ostensen of the expo. “They had some of the biggest names in the industry there, Nintendo, X-Box, Playstation…That’s where they bring in all the big time game developers.”
The award-winning game, Zeta Busters, created by Ostensen and three of his classmates (Melvin Kwan, Charles Park and Brian Yich) over three months was a final project for the game design program at Vancouver Film School.
The game, which pits four heroes against evil robots in a futuristic pastel landscape, was well received at the expo said Ostensen.
“It drew a lot of people in, the fun upbeat colours,” he said of the game that has an anime-inspired sci-fi look. “We wanted it to be very upbeat, light, colourful and fun rather than the gritty, dark colours that you see more of these days.”
With multiple levels and characters, designing Zeta Busters was often a 24-hour-a-day effort for the entire team, requiring Ostensen to learn coding from scratch.
“I taught myself how to code within a few weeks,” said Ostensen, who up till then had never programmed before.
Using C# with the Unity game engine, Ostensen said he and the team built the complex artificial intelligence system after a series of very intense 60-hour-work weeks.
“It breaks a lot because it’s a student project and we only had three months, but we are pretty proud of it nonetheless,” said Ostensen.
Growing up watching cartoons, like Thundercats and He-Man, and even creating his own board games, Ostensen said designing video games is a natural fit for him career-wise.
However, he said his initial training as a paramedic also helps him keep a cool head during “crunch time” when everyone else is “freaking out and running around,” perhaps explaining why he was able to find success at such a young age.
Video game design is one of the fastest growing jobs in BC, creating a hot market for designers in Vancouver. With the average starting age for designers at 31, Ostensen is well ahead of the curve, securing his first job at Kabam, a mobile video game company in Vancouver, just three days after graduating from his program.
“It’s not an industry to get into because you are bored and don’t know what to do with your life,” said Ostensen. “It’s something to get into because you’re passionate about making games and ready to throw your whole life into it.”
To download Zeta Busters for PC readers can visit the school's website.
