U-M grad creates new video game, Black-White Game

A recent University of Michigan graduate is creating a new video game, and it stars a "Happy Dude."

What exactly the Happy Dude in Black-White Game is is still up for debate. It’s a small white character going through a Super Mario Brothers-like game made up of black, white, and grey scenes. This much is known, the main character is small and happy.

"He is sort of a block with legs," says Paul Nagel, creator of Black-White Game. "He is of his own species. He's not a marshmallow or a tooth. He is just a happy little dude."

Nagel, who also goes by the alias James Covenant, graduated from the University of Michigan earlier this year with a bachelors degree in industrial engineering. He is currently working at the university as a video editor while working to create Black-White game.

"We have a lot of the mechanics down, general story outline," Nagel says. "If we had the funding now we would ship it a year from now."

Nagel describes the game on its Facebook page as, "Black-White is a puzzle platform video game for PC/Mac/Linux. You must invert Happy Dude's color from black to white to solve challenging puzzles." So the Happy Dude can change colors which will allow the protagonist to make his way through different levels. Check out a demo of the game here.

"When you're playing it it's very intuitive," Nagel says. "It makes a lot of sense."

Nagel plans to launch the Black-White Game for laptop next year. He is working to launch a crowd-funding campaign for the video game later this fall.

Source: Paul Nagel, creator of Black-White Game
Writer: Jon Zemke

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