The future of video game design lies within the heads and hands of the rising generation, and a new club at Marshall University is creating a new outlet to help students learn.

The Marshall University Game Design Guild has made a way for university students to gain professional experience in the field while still receiving an education. Patrick McBrayer, guild president, said the intention is to “provide an atmosphere that is casual, but simulate the professional environment to allow people to create quality games before they get out into the professional field to give them an edge-up on attacking those careers that are very competitive.”

Moving outside of the traditional classroom allows students to expand on their knowledge even more.

“Part of game design that can be tricky to get in class is that it’s a lot of teamwork,” game design professor Matt Mundell said. “So if we can bring people together who aren’t in the game program, we can meet all the different skills that you really need to make the full projects students might want to make.”

“When you’re in a club room and you’re interacting with people, you don’t feel confined to a chair and you can get up and move around and release your ideas,” McBrayer said.

With 115 students majoring in computer information and technology at Marshall, 48 of those have an emphasis in game design. Mundell has seen the program come a long way since being a Marshall University student himself.

“It was just brand new when I was a student and now I get to teach and help to make it bigger. It’s been growing a lot and so we’re really excited,” Mundell said.

There are currently no regularly scheduled meeting times for the Game Design Guild, though it has already grabbed the interest of several students on campus.

Luke Creasy can be contacted at [email protected].