Club Feature: Game Dev and EOPS
By RYAN MANLEY and CHENGYUE ZHANG
Spring is the season for exploring new clubs! Although they might not be the most well-known or popular clubs on campus, GameDev Club and Exeter Off-Planet Society (EOPS) are both very fun, interactive, and unique in their own ways. Definitely check out these two clubs!
GameDev Club
GameDev club seeks to bring people of different skills and interests together under the combined goal of creating a unique video game. They currently meet on Sundays from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in room 319 in EPAC. Since the beginning of this school year, the club has been building a game with an origami-inspired platform, and they plan to finish the demo of the game by this school year. The club roughly has three teams: coding, art, and music. During each meeting, members can choose and work on one of the sections.
Although the GameDev club qualifies as a STEM club, there are a lot of different elements to it. “There’s so much in it for so many different people. If you like composing music, you can join GameDev and compose music for the game. If you like art, you can make art for the game,” co-head and senior Delaney Schlegel said. “If you like coding, you can write code for the game. If you’re just into video games, you can join [to meet] other people who are also interested in video games. The club built up so many different parts, and there are so many different things to do.”
Passion is what drives a lot of people into the space. “Game development sounds very serious. But to be honest, we’re just a group of people who enjoy games,” co-head and senior Kevin Wei said. “None of us are really experienced in game development. We are all just passionate and are trying to explore this mysterious realm of game dev.”
Like many others, upper Nicholas Lin joined for the aforementioned reason. “I’ve always been playing video games, and I’ve always wanted to see how they were made,” Lin said.
“Game development is more like a medium for storytelling. I find that to be the reason why I like making games so much. It is a creative medium,” upper Ethan Cheng added.
The club is a great space where members can learn from each other. Programmers in the club read through each other’s code and collaborate constantly. “Usually when you program, you don’t work with other people that closely, but in GameDev, sitting beside each other and working on the same computer is pretty fun,” Cheng said.
The club also helps its members build on their technical skills. “[Game development club] develops the members’ skills and programming, especially using tools like Visual Studio Code and the Unity Engine, getting them familiar with GitHub and working with version control along with others remotely,” lower King Diorr explained.
In the beginning of the school year, the club spent lots of meetings discussing what their game project was going to be. “[Brainstorming] was one of the most enjoyable moments. [Each of us] had this fledgling idea of a game building in all of our minds, and all our ideas clashed with each other,” Wei said.
After a long period of debating through their wild ideas to reach a consensus, GameDev club has set their sights on completing a demo. “[We’ve made] a surprising amount of progress. I come in, [work] on the demo, and then [when] I leave, I’m like, ‘How did we get that far in an hour?’ We’re making good progress for the demo being done for sure,” Schlegel said.
“If you like coding, you can write code for the game. If you’re just into video games, you can join [to meet] other people who are also interested in video games. The club built up so many different parts, and there are so many different things to do.”
“Game development is more like a medium for storytelling. I find that to be the reason why I like making games so much. It is a creative medium.”
Passion is what drives a lot of people into the space. “Game development sounds very serious. But to be honest, we’re just a group of people who enjoy games,” co-head and senior Kevin Wei said. “None of us are really experienced in game development. We are all just passionate and are trying to explore this mysterious realm of game dev.”
Like many others, upper Nicholas Lin joined for the aforementioned reason. “I’ve always been playing video games, and I’ve always wanted to see how they were made,” Lin said.
“Passion is what drives a lot of people into the space. ‘Game development sounds very serious. But to be honest, we’re just a group of people who enjoy games.’”
“Game development is more like a medium for storytelling. I find that to be the reason why I like making games so much. It is a creative medium,” upper Ethan Cheng added.
The club is a great space where members can learn from each other. Programmers in the club read through each other’s code and collaborate constantly. “Usually when you program, you don’t work with other people that closely, but in GameDev, sitting beside each other and working on the same computer is pretty fun,” Cheng said.
The club also helps its members build on their technical skills. “[Game development club] develops the members’ skills and programming, especially using tools like Visual Studio Code and the Unity Engine, getting them familiar with GitHub and working with version control along with others remotely,” lower King Diorr explained.
In the beginning of the school year, the club spent lots of meetings discussing what their game project was going to be. “[Brainstorming] was one of the most enjoyable moments. [Each of us] had this fledgling idea of a game building in all of our minds, and all our ideas clashed with each other,” Wei said.
After a long period of debating through their wild ideas to reach a consensus, GameDev club has set their sights on completing a demo. “[We’ve made] a surprising amount of progress. I come in, [work] on the demo, and then [when] I leave, I’m like, ‘How did we get that far in an hour?’ We’re making good progress for the demo being done for sure,” Schlegel said.
Exeter Off Planet Society launching their rocket on the athletic field. Courtesy of Aavik Wadickar
Exeter Off-Planet Society
Exeter Off-Planet Society, abbreviated to EOPS, meets Sunday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the Design Lab, and, according to upper and co-head Will Soh, “do things [that are] space related.” The club debates space-related issues, sometimes invites guest speakers, builds rockets, and more.
“I love our rocket launches. We countdown and watch something we built fly over 850 feet into the air.”
One time, for example, the club went on the gym roof and looked for micrometeorites. The club used neodymium magnets to collect whatever’s magnetic, examined all the collected pieces under the microscope, and identified the micrometeorites which were almost perfectly spherical and shiny. “[This activity] is not super technical or anything, but it’s fun to see that we have things from space that are right in our backyards or right on the roofs of our buildings,” Soh said.
In the past year, the club also focused on the American Rocketry challenge in order to provide a little more structure to their meetings. “[It is] fun, engaging, [and] consistent week after week, and really relevant to what the club’s all about,” Soh explained.
“I love our rocket launches. We countdown and watch something we built fly over 850 feet into the air,” senior Matilda Damon said. “After is fun as well when we have to go rummage through the woods to find them. It’s a blast — no pun intended.”
However, in early spring term, when the club launched their rocket, one of the parts of the rocket, unfortunately, flew away. “The accident sadly happened because of a wind gust,” lower Peter Morand explained. “On our final launch opportunity for the competition, we launched with nearly no wind, but the rocket separated, and the two parachutes came out, the top segment of the rocket, which we had to recover to submit to the competition, got lost. It got blown way past, far beyond our vision to an area of faculty housing.” The team searched for some time and contacted Campus Safety but found nothing.
“It wasn’t our brightest moment,” Soh commented on the accident.
“[This activity] is not super technical or anything, but it’s fun to see that we have things from space that are right in our backyards or right on the roofs of our buildings.”
Maybe members of the club did not know much about building rockets and launching rockets before joining EOPS. In EOPS, they learned to use 3D printers, laser cutting, and all sorts of tools in the design lab. ‘The club is open to all. Always,” Soh emphasized. “ Zero experience necessary.”
“The clubs are open to people to all levels of experiences. Instead of being rigorous, clubs are places meant to help you explore your interests and have fun.”
The club also welcomes people to come and spectate their rocket launches. “You can see the fire coming out of the bottom of the rocket, and it is a hundred percent legal. We always take proper safety measures to minimize the impact of, uh, potential failures,” Morand said.
One of the common things that the coheads of all three clubs mentioned is that they wish more people would move past the intimidation and come to their meetings. The clubs are open to people to all levels of experiences. Instead of being rigorous, clubs are places meant to help you explore your interests and have fun. If you are interested, go join these clubs to learn more!
