February 3, 2023
A native of Leander, Texas, senior Ethan Reeds was looking for a career change when he decided to pursue Game & Simulation Arts at Shawnee State University.
“SSU was close to where I was living at the time and seemed to offer a good opportunity in the field of my interest,” he said.
Finding a familiarity with his classmates and professors, Reeds was grateful for the small class sizes he had experienced in his degree. At SSU, he discovered his passion in gaming in the way lighting can control the mood and the feeling of space in a game. Looking back on his classwork so far, his favorite class allowed him to collaborate with his classmates.
“I learned a lot from the projects and I enjoyed working on them,” he said. “For the last project, you could pick the theme and design, and also collaborate with the other students in the class. So even though it was stressful, it was a lot of fun to work with some of my close friends.”
Throughout his time in the gaming program, Reeds has been introduced to a production environment, making him comfortable with the way games are created and worked on through several phases and artists. While completing his final year of his degree, Reeds is working at Combat Waffle Studios as a Lighting Artist. Established in 2021, the company is a veteran-owned video game development studio. Encouraged to become an Art Director later on in his career, Reeds is focusing on honing his skills while in his current role at the studio.
SSU offers two separate, but coordinated programs in digital simulation and gaming – one in Game Programming and one in Game Arts. For twelve consecutive years, the program has been nationally-ranked on The Princeton Review’s Top Undergraduate Schools for Game Design in the U.S. and Canada. Students in the program have the opportunity to work with classmates in designated design roles through course assignments, multiple Game Jams, and in Senior Studio where the two sides of the program come together to work like a real-life game studio.
To learn more about the gaming programs at Shawnee State University, visit shawnee.edu/gaming.