Student wins game developer award

A Visual and Media Arts student recently won a gold medal at the national Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco for his analysis of a video game called The Cave.

Phillip Binder ’13 was one of 60 undergraduates nationwide participating in the Student Narrative Competition and one of 15 gold medal winners.

Students were asked to write an analysis of the narrative elements of a videogame of their choice. They were tasked with finding narrative techniques, successes, failures, and more.

Binder said he got his start in video game education at the Emerson Engagement Game Lab, where he volunteered for a year and a half.

“It’s a great place to visit for an open discussion about video game design, culture, and ethics,” said Binder, who is currently participating in the College’s Los Angeles program.

After graduation, Binder said he plans to work on “a hodgepodge of children’s cartoon writing, video game journalism, and video game production.”
He is already in the pre-production stages of his own video game with fellow student David Fonseca ’13.