With plans to release a demo this summer, Starworks Studios, a Drexel University student-run game design studio, has been developing Boast Guards for their senior project. Along with their previously released game, Timeworks, their latest game has been accepted to the Pennsylvania TooManyGames convention held from June 27 to 29.
Inspired by Overcooked, a popular couch co-op cooking game, Boast Guards is about working as a team of lifeguards to save people on a beach and complete other objectives while facing different obstacles. Starting on Day One, players pick their characters and work together to complete a simple objective. At the end of each day, players can select an upgrade for their characters for specific skills.
Thomas Ludin, a fifth-year game design and production student and one of the four founders of Starworks Studios, explained the considerations of player experiences behind the details of the game: “We combined different types of swimmers, so like a frat bro, a pro swimmer, casual swimmer, and a heavy swimmer… There’s a lot of thought and mechanics that go into them, in terms of team cooperation of like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna be really fast in the water but slow on the sand, and you’re going to be really fast on the sand but slow in the water.’”
As the days progress in the game, leading up to Day Seven, the difficulty continues to increase: “Maybe Day One, you have to save two swimmers and Day Seven, you have to save 20 and two whales and dodge a tornado. It gets pretty hectic.”
As a team of six College of Computing and Informatics students and 10 game design and production students, Starworks Studios spent about a year developing Boast Guards.
The game idea surfaced at a pitch night, where team members pitch game ideas for their next project. Three ideas were selected and then prototyped from June to August of 2024. From there, the team selected one game to move forward with for their senior project, keeping in mind their current capabilities and the timelines associated with the project requirements.
As Starworks Studios’ marketer, Ludin explained the importance of design for Boast Guards, “Something that was extremely important to us was the marketability and the readability of these projects. So somebody could look at this game and be like, ‘Okay, that’s a beach, that’s a lifeguard,’ or somebody could look at this game and be like, ‘That reminds me of Overcooked,’ or somebody could just look at this game and kind of understand the general gist of what’s happening.”
Following the demo release this summer, Starworks Studios hopes to gain a publisher to help them with funding, marketing and increasing the game’s size before releasing the full version.
“We’ve never had a publisher before, which is why it’s kind of a heavy feat. It’s not super standard for people our age to find a publisher,” Ludin stated. “Typically you have to be in the industry, but we’ve went ahead and we’ve started scouting.”
For all of their projects, Starworks Studios has been working through Drexel’s Entrepreneurial Game Studio. EGS then helps them with outreach, increasing accessibility to events like Philly Tech Week and opportunities to present at the Franklin Institute. Starworks Studios has also previously received $19,000 from Drexel’s entrepreneurial grant for the release of Timeworks and has been accepted to numerous gaming conventions, such as TooManyGames and MAGFest. Earlier this year, they received an Honorable Mention for Best Student Game at GDC’s Independent Games Festival.
After bringing materials to a convention, including tables, chairs, banners and character decorations, the students work to take advantage of the networking opportunities, hoping to expand their outreach to other developers and gamers. By showcasing the game and allowing others to come into the booth and play, they hope to attract more players.
Since the founding of the team during Ludin’s sophomore year, Starworks Studios has grown from a group of four friends to a team of 16 students, all juggling multiple meetings a week while taking classes or on co-op.
Following their passion project Timeworks, they developed Boned for six months as part of their junior workshop.
Following those projects, Ludin described the process of creating Boast Guards per school requirements: “The main thing that we were looking forward to is that it would intertwine our Drexel curriculum with game design, and then in retrospect, the main thing that we kind of found annoying was that it intertwined our classes with this. So realistically, we’re very proud of all the work that we’ve done on these projects, but also Timeworks was… food for the soul… whereas Boned and Boast Guards, we kind of felt… a little bit of restriction because of Drexel’s expectations and requirements from an academia standpoint.”
As graduating seniors, the Starworks Studios team is taking a break during June to rest and re-evaluate their plans moving forward: “Realistically, I think that we all want to be a part of this designing games from a passion perspective… So I think that it’s super important to just kind of grow our portfolio and our resumes… and keep the train chugging from a passion perspective, working on projects that we want to work on, not projects that we need to do homework for.”
Since some members are moving or starting full-time jobs, the team hopes to participate in incubator game jams, in which the group would have 48 hours to a week to create a small game, to keep honing skills and creativity for prototypes.
For those starting on the same path, Ludin emphasized the importance of networking early on and continuously: “Definitely join EGS, get involved, meet people, you know, like you’re never gonna regret doing those things; you might regret not doing those things.”
“I’m proud to say that I’ve gone to Drexel,” Ludin reflected. “I’m proud to say that I’ve connected with people that are also on Steam or also gotten publishers, or also gotten these awards and I’m just really proud of what we’ve done.”
To be notified when Boast Guards is released, add the game to your wishlist on Steam.