Chester College Student Launches Video Game, Starts Gaming Studio

CHESTER, NJ — A college student from Chester is leveling up his resume after creating and launching a successful video game and video game company.

Harry Tomasco is a rising junior at Champlain College in Vermont, where he is pursuing a degree in Game Design with minors in Game Programming and Game Sound Design.

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Recently, he and his team of three other game design students created "MAGE: Mega Awesome Gregarious Encounters." The multiplayer game was inspired by games like "Boomerang Fu and TowerFall."

"An action-packed 2D projectile fighter inspired by controller couch party classics. Master one of 21 unique Mages across over 200 maps in a simple but customizable and deep experience for up to 4 players local or online."

— STEAM description

See the MAGE gameplay trailer below:

With MAGE, Tomasco and his team created FunRug Studio, their very own video game company.

While Tomasco has been studying game design for years, he says the passion to do so sparked with his brothers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We spent that quarantine time playing a lot of games together, having a lot of fun," Tomasco said. "At the same time, I was just starting out in high school and taking a couple of computer science classes, realizing this computer programming stuff is something I'm interested in and something I can do."

Flash forward to Tomasco's days at Champlain, where MAGE originally started as a "just-for-fun" project between him and his roommates.

"There's only a couple of buttons that you use to play, so the game has a low skill floor... Anyone can play the game," Tomasco told Patch. "But then there's a higher skill expression for people that play the game a lot, which was something that was important to us... We really wanted to capture that fun environment where you're just on your couch, hanging out, playing a game with your friends."

Soon enough, after sharing the base of MAGE with friends and colleagues and getting some "really good feedback," Tomasco and his friends began to take the project more seriously.

"We shared MAGE with anyone who would listen. Everyone on Champlain's campus knows about MAGE, because we've been very vocal about sharing the game, trying to raise awareness, and the feedback we've gotten from people has been really positive," Tomasco told Patch. "We've brought the game to 'Games Testing,' which is the thing Champlain does where students can test personal and school projects, and get legitimate feedback from other developers."

As word on MAGE spread, and the feedback became more and more positive, Tomasco and his team decided it was time to publish the game on STEAM, an online video game distribution platform. To do so, they needed to create an LLC; thus, FunRug Studio was born.

Once FunRug Studio launched in January, Tomasco, alongside his team featuring Alexander Weiswasser, Benjamin Adams, and Maxwell Totten, began the process of putting MAGE on the market.

MAGE ended up on 3,000 users' wishlists, with more than 3,700 demo downloads before it was officially released on Junw 23. As of last week, it has sold more than 600 copies.

"People always tell us that the game is really fun; they share their favorite characters," Tomasco said. "One thing that's really cool to me personally is whenever we ask, 'What's your favorite MAGE in the game?' people always give a different answer. There are 21 different characters in the game, and each character is someone's favorite, which I think is really special and really important to the kind of game we were making."

Tomasco says that FunRug Studio plans on creating more games, with one set to debut in the fall, and another coming before the end of 2027. Click here to see games from FunRug Studio and learn more about the LLC.

"MAGE: Mega Awesome Gregarious Encounters" is available to download on STEAM now for $9.99.