CENT News
CENT Students Create New Board Game to Demonstrate Immersive Storytelling Technique
Dec. 5, 2024
At CENT, gaming in all its forms is recognized as a prime example of experiential narrative. People don’t “play” a game as much as they “live” a game.
While the beauty of playing video games is the ability to experience many lives and enter many different worlds, the seeds of this immersion can be found in analog board games. To that end, students in CENT were tasked with creating an analog board game embodying the attributes of good game design and immersive storytelling mechanics.
At the start of this challenge, four CENT students, Saif Greco, AmiRae Lehr, Caleb Knox, and Lebrun Mitchell (pictured above) each pitched a game concept. Working with CENT Director Don Marinelli and Assistant Director Christopher Gaul, the group made the decision to pursue the game concept pitched by Saif Greco.
Titled “Elemental Clash,” the game features a world ruled by six primal forces: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Ice, and Ether. At its genesis, these elements maintained a delicate balance between creation/destruction and light/darkness. Over time, powerful beings known as Elemental Guardians arose, each able to command one of these primal elements. World harmony, however, was fragile. Guardian ambitions grew, each seeking control over other realms. This desire for power plunged the world into chaos and internecine conflict allowed the Ether Guardian to seize control.
Players portray one of the Elemental Guardians, except the Ether. The game’s challenge is to journey across dangerous elemental pathways seeking to overcome the Ether Guardian. Striving to achieve this goal, players unlock ancient abilities, confront all manner of elemental forces — some helpful and others detrimental — while seeking to out-maneuver rival Guardians. Victory results in reclaiming your Guardian’s primal element, ascending to power, and affirming one's title, while bringing harmony back to the world.
What this team of four students achieved in three short weeks was nothing short of truly remarkable. But such is the mission of CENT.
Point Park Esports Holds First High School Rocket League Tournament
Nov. 8, 2024
One thing games and sports have in common is they are both examples of experiential narrative. They aren’t just played; they are experienced. Then, in retrospect, they are recalled as stories. Stories that often last a lifetime.
The advent of interactive digital media in the form of video games, especially esports, has heightened this experiential dynamic tremendously. The computer captures every move made in the course of a game, becoming a living legacy of decision-making, action, loss or triumph.
That is why the Center for Experiential Narrative (CENT) is focused so intently on young people engaged in esports, including our own University varsity team. To that end, CENT faculty, staff, and student members of our esports team were integrally involved in the first annual Point Park University Rocket League Esports High School Invitational held at the Rezzanine Game Center, Phoenix Luxury Cinema, in Bridgeville, PA., on Nov. 8, 2024.
Eight high schools, from as far east as Gettysburg, PA, competed not only for cash prizes but also to meet representatives from Point Park Admissions and Student Life. The event was immensely successful and the start of a new Point Park tradition.