Michael Matthews is the leading designer and programmer at Classy Bogan Studios, a local developer specialising in Virtual Reality (VR). Together with his team of developers, Matthews creates VR titles from Gameplus, a sharespace for game developers. I had the opportunity to speak to Matthews about Classy Bogan Studios and some of their creations. Here is what I discovered.
“Classy Bogan Studios began when Daniel Booker, my artist and very close friend, and I were talking to our boss at our retail job,” says Matthews. “In the conversation, it was brought up that we were game developers and that we had dabbled in VR in our study. When he heard that he suggested that we come up with a VR Training Simulation for our workplace. This was sort of our first big interview.”
The name Classy Bogan originates from their first client meeting, when Brooker arrived wearing his ‘good’ trackies and a jumper full of holes. The name stuck on after this and it is now symbolic to them as trackies are seen as comfort clothes. The company is currently made up of eight members, each specialising in a certain area of digital media, such as 2D artists, 3D artists, and programmers. They tend to use Unity as their primary game engine. Unity is “the engine the team is the most familiar with and its currently the engine that has the best and most thorough documentation”.
![60015223_2167959596592050_1781007531879956480_o[3374]](https://tulpamagazine.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/60015223_2167959596592050_1781007531879956480_o3374.jpg?w=840)
Classy Bogan have done a fair amount since their first project and just last year their work was featured on the water projection at Hybrid World Adelaide. The team also held a VR fishing competition in Port Victoria on the Yorke Peninsula earlier this year. This has been one of the few community events they have attended. Perhaps one of their greatest achievements has been the release of their VR game, Virtual Skydiving, on Steam. Virtual Skydiving, created for Virtual Reality Adelaide is one of their most challenging yet rewarding creations to date. When it was uploaded, Matthews said it was “a major achievement as we hadn’t done anything like that in the past.”
As for the future, Matthews says they have many upcoming projects. Currently they are working on a Gamified Virtual Tour for the geology department at Uni SA and updating Virtual Skydiving to improve the user experience. They are also working on a game developed during a game jam called Screeming Cheeses.
For those who wish to find out more about Classy Bogan Studios, check out their website here.
Words by Cameron Lowe
Tulpa Magazine 