‘Culinary Conquest’ was the big winner at the SkillsUSA state contest

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

They finished third in the state as sophomores.

They regrouped. Came up with another idea. And then finished second at state as juniors.

Isaac Miller, Sebastian Najar, and Luke Twiss had one more school year to accomplish the ultimate goal.

When the academic year began, they went to work. Another new concept. Then design. Execution.

They called this one: Culinary Conquest.

Then they conquered the SkillsUSA state competition.

In June, the three seniors from Evergreen High School are going to nationals after winning first place in Washington for Interactive Application of Video Game Development.

What is Culinary Conquest? 

“You are in a cooking competition with other chefs which has been taken over by a big bad pig,” Miller said. “There is another world, called the Food World, where you and the rest of the competitors are taken to.”

There, you take on enemies called “Foodles” and once you defeat the foodles, you can go into the mini game to start cooking.

“You start out in a city scene. You have to explore around,” Najar explained. 

There, the player comes into contact with three types of enemies — cheese mice, bags of wheat, and flying pigs. 

After defeating them — with cartoon violence, not gore — one has enough ingredients to make the main dish for the first battle, which is a sandwich.

A battle?

“The reason it’s called a battle is because it’s sort of like a food fight. You can throw some cheese or other ingredients at an opponent to try to stop them,” Miller said.

Naturally.

To compete for SkillsUSA, game designers cannot start work on a project until the beginning of a school year. Once they started, though, it was difficult to stop. They put in hours and hours, every day, developing this role playing cooking game.

Judges are looking for a number of things. How well is the code put together to create the game? Does it run smoothly on the computer? Does the artwork go with the game concept? Does the game “feel” good to play? Is it fun?

The students also must have a poster board to explain their project. They make a hype video, too, a trailer to showcase the best of what the game delivers.

There is a question-and-answer presentation with the judges.

Then there is a time when the students do … pretty much nothing.

“The biggest part is letting the judges play the game,” Twiss said. “They don’t want you to explain. It’s like a player discovering the game for the first time.”

Twiss noted that in normal play, a customer will not have the game designer in the room when the customer plays the game for the first time.

“We handed the judges the controller and they figured it out,” Twiss said.

Clearly, they did figure it out. And had fun. And enjoyed the music. And the art. The layout. Everything. 

Because the next day, at the awards ceremony …

Before the big news, it should be noted that Twiss was with Miller and Najar during Friday’s presentation to the judges in Tacoma. But on Saturday, when the winners were announced, Twiss was with his Evergreen Knowledge Bowl teammates at their state competition in Wenatchee.

Miller, along with Najar, pulled a prank on Twiss, telling him that they did not win. (This was about an hour before the awards were announced.)

In reality, Miller and Najar had to wait a long time before SkillsUSA announced the winner for Video Game Development. There are, after all, dozens of categories for SkillsUSA competitions.

When they heard their names …

“I started screaming, I was so excited,” Najar said.

“We were both yelling at each other,” Miller said. “I had a big, old smile holding up the state champion flag. We took our pictures. It was pretty awesome.”

By then, Twiss and his friends were at a restaurant. Miller and Najar face-timed him, showing off the gold medals, telling Twiss that they were just kidding an hour or so earlier when they said they didn’t win.

“I wasn’t even there, but I got an adrenaline rush from that,” Twiss said.

The three have always loved video games, so it was an easy decision to take a course in design at Evergreen, taught by Jason Westerbur. That is when they got their start with SkillsUSA competition, their sophomore year. 

“Before I got into game design, I really liked pixel art,” Najar said. “I took that opportunity to make my own art and put it in the game.”

For Twiss, he just loves the programming part of video game development. He took online programming courses back when he was in middle school, and he wants to get into computer science.

Miller said he enjoys the different aspects of creating a video game.

“There is a lot of creativity, a lot of art, a lot of thinking. It’s not just one thing,” Miller said. “You’re not stuck just doing coding. If you get bored at making art, you can make sound, or write code, or think of other ideas.”

Westerbur said he appreciates the teamwork the three students shared to win the state championship.

“It’s exciting to see all the work they have put into it. Hours and hours and hours, just learning how to code, learning how to use the game engine to build everything,” Westerbur said. “They have spent so much time and energy and effort. To see all that pay off, to get the opportunity to go to nationals, to celebrate all of their accomplishments, it’s pretty cool.”

Nationals will be held in June in Atlanta. The students have been raising funds for the trip on their own, and they also have a website that accepts donations. The goal is to raise $6,000. If you wish to donate, go here: https://culinaryconquestte.wixsite.com/culinary-conquest