 So I'll just start by introducing myself. So my name is Eva. I'm the peer advisor for computer science engineering and I'm currently a third year in computer science engineering. And today we have Wolverine soft joining us today. Very exciting. Do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit about your role in Wolverine soft. Yeah, so my name is Paul. I'm a philosophy major Wolverine soft is ultimately University of Michigan to main like game development community. I'm the main marketing person for it. And it's just really cool club. So yeah. Okay, awesome. And then from there, can you tell us a little bit about like what Wolverine soft is kind of with the main goal of the work is. Yeah, so Wolverine soft ultimately is a game development community. We want to encourage people who are pursuing like art, audio design programming to learn like how to apply that into creating video games. We have a lot of just community events, hang out events also. And it's pretty beginner friendly, but but ultimately what Wolverine soft is about is we're about game development and helping people wherever they're at, learn how to be able to create video games. Cool. That's awesome. Um, can you talk a little bit about maybe like what the structure is in Wolverine soft. I know you'd mentioned to me like there's some different leads. Maybe like what those different categories are. Yeah, so Wolverine soft is a club has a lot of like some like categories of like different activities we do. The main ones are like the club activities, which are led or managed by seven officers. And then we occasionally have like committee members for that to support those seven officers. And then we also have something called Wolverine soft studio and that's where a team of students usually around 25 to 40 each semester creates wanted to video games as like high quality portfolio projects. And for that, we even bring in like industry playtusters. And that's just that's an experience for people who are really passionate and seriously pursuing game development for like a career. And then the club has several weekly events just about just hangout events, game development events, fun stuff. Cool. With that, too, you're mentioning, you know, Wolverine soft is a game or so you can talk about what kind of games that you guys have made in the past, maybe like what some of your favorites were. What ones you're working on right now. Yeah, so Wolverine soft studio is a really unique endeavor. I personally have not seen anything like it at all their universities. And we've been talking to a bunch of different universities. And Wolverine soft studio. So like each semester will typically have a case study game that could be something like balloons tower defense could be like doom. It could be very it could be any game basically that we think we can make some sort of replica within a semester's timeframe, which is pretty short for how ambitious, like the projects are. So like one of my favorites that was a past project and we're actually revamping this semester. It was called regular TV. It's basically I mentioned balloons tower defense. It's a balloons tower defense game of that semester. We decided to make the theme of it like Nordic Viking mythology, which is pretty cool. And then this semester, small team is working on making that an actual multiplayer experience for people. So we're overall we make anything like that. And then a personal favorite of mine is one called caduceus. It's a 3D like labyrinth. Basically the levels procedurally generated. It's random each time you play it. It was a project where we definitely over scoped and we were really too ambitious, but it was a really fun experience and to be humble to that way learn a lot from it. But overall, like those are probably my favorite games. And then this semester we're also working on this game on steam called FTL and it's kind of cool. Like it's almost like we basically are making it so you have a submarine and then you can use that. You basically try to keep the submarine repaired as the game progresses. So, yeah, those sounds really, really cool. Can I ask too, how, where do you are people allowed to play these games after you've made them? Or like, where are they available? Yeah, so our website wolverinesoft.org we have some links that go to a lot of our past projects. It's a really, it's pretty new thing. It's created in like 2019, like around like summer fall. And people can play games on our itch page, which some of those links will take you to those itch games and we're starting to upload them on Steam also. It's like just free to play. So that can also be found on our website or just reaching out. So awesome. Those sounds like very complex games. Do you need experience to join Wolverinesoft or how can beginners join? So you don't like Wolverinesoft studio you for that we typically do look for experience and you apply for that for art, design, programming or audio, but the actual club is basically just we welcome anyone and we want to actually help people, even if you start from zero, you have no knowledge about game development or computers or like your programming or just anything like that. We want to be able to help people like that. We personally am a philosophy major and it's like I started off not knowing anything. I just went to some of the fun community events just met some really nice people and overall like that's helped turn into serious passion of mine and you just get we have multiple events each week. We have a lot some of those further detail on our website, but overall you just join either by checking out one of our game gems that we have a couple times each semester or weekly general meeting or also like a game and talk which is kind of like a book club except instead of books you play a different video game each week. It's pretty cool. We also have community nights and we have a lot of stuff. So just going up to the discord and explore the website will you can see some pretty cool stuff. Cool. That's great way for people to join them with that too. Do you guys have some professional opportunities for members as well? Like is there a way for people to talk to like older members or I'm not sure. So we don't have like a formal process that we are like currently developing ways for people that have created a lot of things, especially in recent years who've created things like Wolverine soft studio to provide advice and to be speakers for people that are joining. The officers are always they're a bit more experienced or passionate with game development in general. They're always a great resource to talk to. But we're also rolling out some things like a resume book which we use to communicate with other companies and then also maybe like some kind of alumni discord. But overall our discord like is about 1600 people and people that are in the club they usually stay in it over time. There's no formal application like join either. So as for professional opportunities Wolverine soft studio is by far the clearest like that gives you phenomenal game development experience really some portfolio projects. But doing the game jams. We do we also two to three semester that will like you make a video game in 48 hours. Even if you're a complete beginner recommend you just learn by doing and that helps you build your portfolio a lot quicker. And then if you more people you talk to like we have a ton of people that work at different game development industry companies triple a studios or indie studios or whatever. So on triple A would be like soccer bunch like I mean that could be anything like Nintendo or war blocks that might count. But overall we have a lot of people that have been in through Wolverine soft gone into really cool careers. That's awesome. It's like a lot of great opportunities and with that too you had mentioned some different social events that you guys have. Do you want to talk maybe about like what your favorite social event is. Yeah. So me personally I love game jams. We have snacks and like lunch and dinner throughout the weekend. We literally have the room open like overnight and you make a video game in 48 hours. The really cool part about it is when you meet people and it's like oh I'm an artist. OK. Oh there's someone that really focused on like sound designer wants to learn how to do that. Oh this person's like got a computer science degree but not much game development experience. They could be really it could be great experience for them to be on our team to like do the programming for the game. It's really cool meeting new people and then working at different projects. I usually whenever I do participate usually try to meet different people and try to work on a different project each time because of that. It's it's a really cool experience. And then you also again the snacks and food and it's just a classic like oh it's college weekend you know. So yeah. That's great. That's a great like professional and social opportunity. That's awesome. With that too. Can you talk a little bit about how people in CS you can get involved in over in soft specifically like is there a specific application or can people just show up. Yeah so people in CSE anyone can get involved literally just by joining our discord is our main hub. And overall like through that you see various announcements. It's almost like you choose how involved you got the only part of over in soft that you have to apply for is the studio just because of the limited resources to provide such an environment. For a team of students to create that video game each semester. But everything else like the game and talk just like the book club thing game jams we create a video game 48 hours or general meetings are once a month community nights. These are consistent events that we have throughout the semester and it's just whatever you can make it we'd love to see there. And overall to like I think a lot of people think oh I have to have a lot of game development experience I have to have to be a master at it I have to have something like it's we're not like that we're trying to get as many people as we can to join just and help you like where you're at overall. So In a way it's like the University of Michigan doesn't have a formal game development degree or program and then all the rival institutions like Michigan State. They have like a world class game development thing figured out so over in soft in a way is kind of the gap here at the University that helps people like who are passionate or actually just want to explore learn about game development about art audio design programming just overall anything Making games and telling cool stories. So, yeah, that's great. That was a great overview of how people can join With that too. Can you talk a little bit about the time commitment of Wolverine soft is there a certain like amount that people have to commit to when they join and then with that how have you balanced classes with Wolverine soft. Yeah, so our discord is about 1600 people it's been growing daily for a while even after the pandemic which is really cool. And a lot of those people basically you choose how involved you got there's no time commitment. But to make the most out of the experience to really learn game development I would say you just try as many opportunities as you can and try to meet as many cool people as you can. It's like the actual. So, so I would say the general meeting look like we have around 100 active members I would say across all our activities including the studio and overall it's kind of cool like seeing how big the club is on discord talking to people and then actually going to these events and finding out Hey, the game game and talk like book club thing basically like that's about 10 to 15 people that tried a new game this week and it's really cool experience even if you didn't even if you forgot to play the game so welcome to go to that. Or like the general meeting it's like we'll either have industry playtested sometimes spend a lot of workshops is how to learn to use programs to unity and other things so it's really there's no time commitment to be an active member you just generally attend events here and there and to be a part of the discord. Like, there's literally just, you can go to Wolverinesoft.org and just check out as many opportunities and channels can. Yeah. That's awesome. Okay, cool. And the way to do you want to talk briefly about kind of the I know there's a lot of events and opportunities. Yeah, coming up like this next week or so before like the semester ends. So we have a really, we collaborate with something called IGDA. It's an international game development association. And the overall like people will. So each semester they'll team up with X for 94 Wolverinesoft studio like Wolverinesoft the club will join a lot. We'll partner with Eastern Michigan University. We have like a really big showcase at the end of the semester showing off really cool games that people have made just at U of M and at Eastern Michigan University. So that's happening on December 9. That's a really big one that's really cool. You can join virtually or again, you'll hear details if you join the discord. You'll see them in the announcements or you can go in person. And I believe that is right here. Well, I might, I might see a dude or so right now, but that's at like the BBB building by the main atrium, like the main area basically at BBB. So on that December 9. So, yeah. Perfect. That's awesome. That's a great way to get started if I'm enjoying. And then during my last question, I want to ask you just, can you talk a little bit about maybe what your favorite part is the Wolverinesoft? Yeah, my favorite part of Wolverinesoft is how welcoming and how encouraging a lot of people in the community are they again I was a philosophy major that started from literally nothing. And it's like, I never imagined it had been kind of a dream in the back of my head, like, oh, it'd be cool to learn how to make a video game someday. And it's like, I'm actually able to do that. And whether, whether I'm in the studio, whether or not, like by doing game jams, it's like, it's just really cool. I think a lot of the people are pretty authentic too. And I personally like that about the club a lot. A lot of people, sometimes things are awkward, sometimes things are just real, you know, so I really appreciate that. That's awesome. Well, some questions here. I really, really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us a little bit about Wolverinesoft. It sounds like an amazing org with so many opportunities. So this video will be up for people to learn more about it in the future too. And thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no, thank you, Eva. I appreciate it being able to talk about it. Bye.