Open Alpha members (Photo/Courtesy of Violet Wang)
Sitting cross-legged on the sun-warmed asphalt of her elementary school playground, Violet Wang rallied her friends for an epic eraser battle. Wang, now a student at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, remembers creating silly games like battling friends with erasers or tweaking the rules of board games to give them her own unique spin.
“I imagine a lot of kids did that sort of thing,” she said with a laugh.
Open Alpha Co-President Violet Wang (Photo/Courtesy of Violet Wang)
Despite her creative side, Wang always figured she’d end up in a STEM field. With her father a computer programmer and her mother a math and Chinese tutor, the path almost seemed pre-determined. Her trajectory seemingly solidified as a pre-teen when she discovered an appreciation for indie video games, a field powered by computer science.
Wang found herself deeply inspired by games like Undertale and Stardew Valley. “I really, really love the way that indie games come across as one person or a couple of people’s visions and voices,” she said. She appreciates their ability to tell a story, as the developer is delivering their imagination right to you. From the soundtrack to the visual aesthetics to the writing and the games’ mechanics and code, every single detail is meticulously added to share the same story.
A sophomore studying computer science games, Wang is one of two presidents of Open Alpha – a game design club at USC that aims to create an original video game every semester. The club just announced this year’s project, “Open Your Browser,” a hectic game in which a player attempts to open their browser while pop-ups try to stop them. Previous games include “Smooth-Talking Pickpocket,” “Sorcerer Smackdown” and “Check It Out!” — which has had over 100,000 players.
Wang joined the club in spring of her freshman year and has served as president since the fall semester. As much as she loved serving as club president, Wang felt overwhelmed when the membership doubled to 50 in a little less than a year So, she tapped board member Ramsey Hauanio to serve as co-president.
Open Alpha Co-President Ramsey Hauanio (Photo/Courtesy of Violet Wang)
Hauanio, a sophomore studying computer science and business administration, said while initially surprised, she has grown to appreciate her new role. “There’s nothing like watching a room full of people geeking out over their concepts, bouncing ideas off each other, and getting genuinely excited about what they’re going to build together.”
Despite the collaboration and talent, creating a video game in just one semester is no small feat. The first four weeks of each semester are dedicated to team bonding, interviews, onboarding and choosing a game to make. Once members make a final decision on what to create, students split up among four teams: design, sound, programming and art.
By the first half of the semester, Open Alpha will have created an entire video game, albeit far from finished. For professionals, this process is usually spread out over months or even years. The rest of the semester is dedicated towards finalizing characters and game mechanics, intense playtesting, and lots of bug fixing. At the end of the semester, the game is showcased at a release event and ready for the public to play.
Wang, who’s been a member of the club for over a year, finds that many Open Alpha members crash around halfway into the semester. As midterms roll out, students start to find that they have much less time to dedicate to the club. To combat this, Open Alpha holds biweekly social events, including game jams and group outings. “I think it helps people dedicate themselves to their clubs if they actually care about the people in the club,” Wang said.
Wang’s experiences at Open Alpha have shown her how valuable collaboration is in the video game design process. Since she has always dreamed of becoming an indie game developer, she once imagined that working with others would be frustrating or complicate things. Now, she deems collaboration an imperative part of the design process.
Wang feels that her experience at Open Alpha has been invaluable for her eventual career in the field.
“Open Alpha is preparing me for future professional success by giving me tons of experience into what it’s like being in the actual games business,” she said. “Whether it’s design and art, learning how to schedule game development production, or learning how to facilitate team bonding and communicate, it is giving me the experience of creating a game and teaching me so many lessons about game development that I could not have gotten anywhere else.”
Published on March 13th, 2025
Last updated on March 13th, 2025
