University of Hartford sophomore Aaron Shea is using his love for video games as a way to help bring students together. The sophomore computer science major has started a new club on campus called “Project Gamma” that focuses on developing and designing video games.

Shea has had an extensive fascination with video game development since he was 10-years-old, and in June 2015, he received a $7,000 grant from Epic Games for creating a plug-in that allows players to use a web browser within games.

An aspect of video games that Shea loves is that it allows for creative expression through various mediums.

“I was thinking there had to be more people on campus who were interested in, but there’s just not a place for them to come together to share their talents,” Shea said. “You could possibly have artists from the Art School who want to do some concept art, some sprite work or illustration for games. Same thing with musicians. Maybe they want to get their music into games, have their name on it. We just want to have a great time with some artists and designers and make something that’s really awesome.”

The name “Project Gamma” came about because Shea had the support from fellow students Antonio Morales and Tushar Iyer, who helped put this together. Since there is three of them, they decided to select the third letter in the Greek Alphabet so thus, “Project Gamma” was born.

Shea began planning last semester and within a 48-hour period, he already had the forms and contracts completed and ready to be submitted for approval. The club had their first meeting Friday, Feb. 5, and despite the return of snow to the UHart campus, there were still over 20 students who were there in attendance. Shea’s goal of having students from different branches of the University came to fruition as the majors of computer science, illustration, music composition, audio engineering and sociology were all represented.

“A lot of clubs end up finding their own majors that they attract,” Shea said. “I’m trying to make something that can attract multiple majors and get all types of different people involved.”

The club is early in development and are still just discussing ideas of what they would want to do, but Shea hopes that they can eventually work together to make something functioning that they could play and share with the rest of the student body.

“It’s open to anybody,” Shea said. “If you’re interested in any form of learning how games are made, or maybe you just want to learn. Maybe you’re there because you have a passion to make something or maybe you’re just curious. We say, ‘All are welcome.’”

Project Gamma meets on Fridays from 4:15–5:15 p.m. in Dana Hall 318.

For questions or more information, contact Shea at ashea@cs.hartford.edu.

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