The power of pixels CB Tech duo brings home state championship

MOSES LAKE — Grant Bewick and Micah Johnson liked their chances after the first day of state FBLA competition. “Hey, this is ours,” Micah said.

Maybe confidence fluctuated a little. “We really just wanted to place,” Grant said.

But their confidence was not misplaced. Their video game earned the two seniors from CB Tech (Columbia Basin Skills Center) a state title. They will advance to national FBLA competition in Anaheim, Calif., in late June.

The assignment was a game that recalled the Stone Age, at least in terms of gaming – the 1980s. “Arcade style. Back to the ’80s. A lot people just call it retro now,” Johnson said.

That was the contest. But Bewick said they didn’t want to make the FBLA contest the standard – they wanted a game that would be fun by any gamer’s standard.

“Our game is called Cave of Shadows,” Johnson said. It took first place in regional competition, then underwent a major remodel before state.

“There’s a cave full of treasure, and the only thing standing between you and the treasure is an army of skeletons. And some wizards,” Micah said. It had more of a fantasy vibe before the overhaul, with the main character, a bear, throwing an axe. By the time it went to state the main character became a person, “an Indiana Jones type of adventure,” he said. “Gun-toting adventure with a cool hat.”

“That is a cool hat,” Grant said.

The third member of their team worked on the original design, but had to quit the class, which necessitated the remodel. They didn’t want to get credit for using somebody else’s work, Micah said.

The rebuild required a lot of time and thought. “It was a crazy amount of work,” Micah said. They spent three to four hours a day on it during class, and Grant said he supplemented that with a couple more hours after school. Micah also put in extra hours.

They devised a way to make the game character’s hands move in anatomically impossible directions. “One big unique mechanic,” Micah said. A mechanic is the computer code that governs the movement of game characters.

“How many pages of code?” Micah asked.

“It was, like, 62 pages,” Grant said.

They also put a lot of thought into the way it looked, since the rules stipulated it had to be reminiscent of a 1980s game. “The only reason our game didn’t look good is that we were afraid it would look too good,” Micah said. In fact, another team got marked down due to the look of their game.

But for all the work and for all the technical glitches that had to be worked out at state, it was a great project. “Oh, it was fun,” Grant said.

“It was a rocking good time to make this game,” Micah said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.