On 18 July, the results of the third stage of the “Student Startup” contest of the federal project “Platform of University Technological Entrepreneurship” were concluded. The teams from the Faculty of Computer Sciences will receive 1 million rouble grants each: the team of Artiom Merkulov with the project “Feedback system for public transport” and the team of Igor Khaustov with the project “Development of a Japanese style video game called the Last Eclipse”.
Artiom Merkulov and his team developed an application for public transport, vashavtobus.rf. Chatbot operators will promptly respond to passengers’ requests and complaints, and QR codes linked to a chatbot or a website where every passenger can leave a message will be placed in minibuses and buses.
“The chatbot filters messages and sorts them by the degree of importance. After that, the requests are sent to the server where they are dealt with by operators in real time. If it is a “burning” request, the operator contacts the passenger as soon as possible and solves their problem,” said Alexey Maximov, project curator.
The project originated from the League of Innovations. Today, it is implemented by students Artiom Merkulov, Gagik Grigoryan, and Dmitry Kriulin under the guidance of Alexey Maximov, senior lecturer at the Department of Digital Technologies at the Faculty of Computer Sciences.
Igor Khaustov’s team has been developing a Japanese-style video game, the Last Eclipse, for over a year. During their third year of studies, Daniil Ivonin and Igor Khaustov, the project’s chief programmers, gathered a team that consisted of Ruslan Bozorov, composer, Fyodor Kuliev, artist, and Elena Krukova, screenwriter.
The game was created using Unreal Engine 5, an advanced game development engine, and all available technologies. According to the students, this grant is just the beginning of a bigger story. The students will spend their million roubles on technical equipment and motion capture suits to speed up the development process.
“We presented the game during a Project Management lesson and were recommended to apply for the “Student Startup”. The representatives of the VSU Project Office helped us to make the application. I was very surprised when I learned that we had won a million. During the first stages of the presentation, the jury didn’t seem to be interested in our game at all,” said Igor Khaustov.
The students decided that the game would be in a Japanese style when they applied for the Project Bazar contest on VKontakte. As a result, they won the audience’s choice award.
“To provide the player with some options, we used a kunai, a Japanese knife. When thrown in the game, it doesn’t just do damage, but also, for example, it can freeze an area or create lightning there. What’s more, you can use several functions. So the player can use a combination of abilities,” said Igor Khaustov.
The player is placed within the conflict of gods. The plot is as follows: after the departure of the goddess Amaterasu, the Sun went dark. The world was engulfed in chaos and bloodthirsty demons, “They”, have taken over the world. Ronin Hiro, who had to survive while searching for his missing brother, had to save the whole universe.
