Event details: 2pm, July 9, 2025

Zane Day, a Sophomore in the Simulation and Game Development Program, is a driven creative exploring and developing his skills in game design. With experience in more traditional artistic mediums, Day brings his previous knowledge to his video game project, Blighted, in new and exciting ways. 

At the Artist Talk, Zane Day and Paul Markert, the SGD Program Director, had a fruitful conversation that delved into Day’s creative process, hurdles, inspirations, and included a run through of the game, Blighted. With inspiration stemming from older adventure-based video games like Runescape and Dark Souls, Day created a world with beautiful vistas that players are able to explore as an adventuring knight. Along the way, players fight off ominous spiders and adventurers of years past who were corrupted, or blighted, by a mysterious ailment. 

Making this project in class, Day had a time frame of 2 weeks to translate a vision in his head into a playable game, his first time doing something of this magnitude. Paul Markert noted that “the only way to learn how to make games is to make games. At the end of the day, that is what we strive to do in the program.”

Day and Markert discussed in detail the process of designing the main character using Maya 3D modeling software and the space using Unreal Engine. Even though Day mentioned that parts of the process were challenging, his passion for video game design led him to explore these softwares beyond the classroom, coming up with his own assets and textures to implement in his game. 

Day expressed a love for nature in reality, with his favorite color being green, and how interesting it is to see how nature is interpreted in video games. This is clear in his game as most of it takes place outdoors. It is in his development of this landscape that Day experimented the most with textures and assets, creating a stunning landscape with winding rivers, grand views of swaying trees, and roaming paths. He noted how fascinating it is that video games “can replicate something so natural in such a brutal software.”

When asked what his plans were after he completes his degree here at CFCC, Day discussed his goals of going on to NC State to study computer science and video game design, and getting an internship with a company in the industry. With this project under his belt, the skills he is learning in the program at CFCC, and the intention to continue expanding on Blighted, Day is on his path to working in the industry in new and exciting ways.

If you’re curious to play Blighted or other video games designed by SGD Program students, be sure to check out Wilma W. Daniels Gallery’s current exhibition Serious/Play, on view until August 1st, 2025!