"Bucky Challenge" is in the iTunes App Store!

The Pan American
by Victor Ituarte

After recently winning a Webby, an Emmy, and a Telly, Reel to Red Productions continues to raise the bar with its release of a UTPA-themed mobile game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.


The app is a sports-themed game called “Bucky Challenge” in which the user guides Bucky, the UTPA mascot, through a series of athletic challenges by using the touch screen.

Chelse Benham, the Director of Reel to Red and the game’s Creative Director, led five Reel to Red team members along the journey of creating the app.

“It’s actually a marketing tool to expose the youth to the University,” says Benham. “The idea of doing a game app became interesting because The University of Texas at Austin had a utility app that was popular. It was number seven on the most popular free apps in the iTunes App store. I wanted an iTunes game that could be used to market UTPA.”

The idea behind the app is to expose the public to the university behind the mask of a fun game that is free to download.

What is novel about “Bucky Challenge” is the entire game takes place on the UTPA campus.

“’Bucky Challenge” is a multi-level sports game where we literally took photos of the campus and incorporated those into the game. We figure that if it takes someone anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to play the game, what they’re seeing are the real University buildings and signage all that time. At the end of the game, the University’s website is displayed on the win page. It’s a new way to market to the youth on their terms,” Benham said.

Not only are users exposed to images of the campus, a few familiar faces will be present in the game as well.

“The game has humor. It’s meant to be funny. I and our other graphic designer, Hilda Del Rio, made the Reel to Red team into bubble-head characters that can be seen in the game. We also arranged a photo shoot with Ricardo Gonzalez who plays UTPA’s mascot, Bucky ,” says Alexis Carranza, graphic designer and assistant director for Reel to Red. “We did a one-hour photo shoot with him dressed in costume and posing in different sport poses. That was a lot of fun because Ricardo was patient.”

Designing the game came as no easy task. The group had no coding or app-building knowledge, and learning the software development kit from Apple to create an app that functions with the iPhone was an enormous undertaking.

“It required learning everything from the human interface guidelines (HIG) for Apple to trying to learn Xcode, which is C++ and Objective-C-based coding. That’s almost impossible trying to learn overnight and still put a game together,” Benham explained.

After about six weeks of trying to figure out Apple’s Xcode, Benham’s son assisted the group by informing them of a program called GameSalad. GameSalad is a program created by Gendai Games, a company based in Austin. http://www.gamesalad.com/ It is a beta 2D game design program with software glitches that were difficult to solve.

“GameSalad is freeware, but it’s a beta and it’s constantly having problems. It can be hard to work with. There are quirks about it you have to figure out what is causing the problem,” explained James Hernandez, the game’s technical engineer. “I’m sure it’s much easier on a second game. Mind you, our game is one of the very few being built with GameSalad that’s multi-level.”

Despite the trouble brought on by working with a beta, Game Salad turned out to be a simpler program to work with than Xcode.

“We were kinda discouraged at first working with Xcode, but once GameSalad came along the game building went from some impossible idea to being a real product in a short period of time,” says Hilda Del Rio.

Ultimately, the project was started as a learning curve for the members of Reel to Red.

“There was a lot of trial and error on trying to fix the movements of our characters. Especially in the editing portion when we put the levels together, and how those levels would interact with each other. It was challenging,” says Hernandez who initially underestimated the amount of physics that went into the creation of a game.

“It’s just another creative product from Reel to Red, where we expand the skill set of the team and showcase the University in a unique way,” says Benham.

People can see the screenshots of the “Bucky Challenge” at http://www.reeltored.com/ or download it for free from iTunes.