Beyond NYU: From playing the game to building the game

Two decades before Zeke Virant helped build award-winning video games, he was a 10-year-old who was first exposed to the gaming world through his Apple II computer. 

That’s when he joined online messaging boards to team up with friends to practice their gaming skills. The player community was small then, as digital devices were not yet widespread, and people had limited access to online gaming. Virant graduated from Bard College and moved to New York City to work as an opera composer. Soon after attending a lecture at the NYU Game Center, he applied to its Masters of Fine Arts program and became one of the first students to graduate.

Virant talked to WSN about his transition from music to game design, and his involvement in building “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle,” which won the D.I.C.E. Award for Adventure Game of the Year.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WSN: What was it like being one of the first students in NYU’s game design program?

Virant: From the very beginning, having a nice, tight community where there were people from all kinds of different game design backgrounds — or even hobbyists — was super duper inspiring, and it was super easy to do good work in that environment. As the first class of MFA students, you’re just forming this program and building a cohesive, tight bond between everyone. 

Growing up in a farm area in Dublin, Georgia, Virant spent his summers exploring the internet. His curiosity led him to experiment with making music and designing websites, which led to his acceptance to a boarding school despite low grades. He also dabbled in video games, including the 1997 shooter game “Half-Life.” 

Virant also recruited his undergraduate classmates to join his punk band. The experience inspired him to pursue music professionally, leading him to enroll in a music program during his time at Bard College. 

WSN: How did you transition from making music to game design?

Virant: When I started doing music in high school, I really wanted to do something unique and experimental. So I played with lots and lots of different people and tried lots and lots of different styles of music. 

After I wrote an opera, it struck me that I didn’t know what I was doing. I liked doing it, but I really wanted to make games, and that’s been my dream job since I was a kid. 

Through NYU’s connection with the city’s game design community, Virant was able to secure a spot in the Game Center’s pilot incubator program and launch his first game in 2014. The program — which typically starts in the fall and offers up to $15,000 stipend for developers — was Virant’s launch pad for turning his thesis, “Soft Body,” into a publishable game for people to purchase on PlayStation 4.

Virant landed his first game designer job at Avalanche Studios in 2017 after moving to Sweden for his wife’s postdoctoral work. In 2020, he became a senior game designer at MachineGames, helping to build “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.” Similar to most projects that were impacted by the pandemic, the game’s launch was postponed to 2024. 

“Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” is a first-person game where players explore locations as Indiana Jones to discover hidden secrets of several historical sites — such as Vatican City and the Great Pyramids at Giza — before World War II. 

WSN: What was it like creating ‘Indiana Jones and the Great Circle?’

Virant: It’s very much like when I played ‘Mega Man 2’ and ‘The Oregon Trail’ with my brother and our friend. It would be all of us sitting around it together enjoying it. I missed that whole experience of playing really difficult puzzle games with your family. Indiana Jones really brought that out in a lot of people because people love the character and the story. It was something that people could experience together just by watching someone else play and not necessarily having to play themselves.

Virant said that being a part of a tight-knit and passionate community at NYU helped him accelerate his path in the game design industry. He cited professors such as Eric Zimmerman and Frank Lantz, both award-winning designers and founding faculty of the Game Center, as helping him solidify his interest in the field. Having worked as both an independent designer and in Triple-A development — projects produced by big-budget studios — he still believes in creating games based on authentic feedback to deliver the best possible experience. 

WSN: What’s the difference between working independently versus in Triple-A development?

Virant: When I worked by myself, I relied on play testing to make sure that I would push it to a higher level. Whereas when I worked in Triple-A development, I worked with people who are basically there to mentor me and say, ‘This is not hitting the mark, we need to make this better.’ In Triple-A games, you’re surrounded by people who are incredible at their craft. It’s really nice to have that surrounding you all the time to know that you can always ask someone, ‘What would you do?’

Contact Kaitlyn Sze Tu at kszetu@nyunews.com.

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