Marcus Brooks has founded Greedy Gull Studios with fellow Computer Science (Games) BSc(Hons) students Matt Manser, Matej Navara, and Joseph Loe to design games and apps for mobile phones and tablets.
Music for their first official game has been composed by American student, Chika Shimojima, with the support of her father, Professor Atsushi Shimojima at Stanford University.
Greedy Gull Studios' first game Super Awesome Line Game, described as a cross between the popular games Snake and Tron, has just been released. The main goal is to navigate an ever-growing line around sharp corners at ever-increasing speed, without crashing.
Marcus, in his third year, said: "I've programmed for years and always loved it. 91¶¶Òõ is one of the few universities that does this specific course so it's been a great learning experience and really fun.
"We designed the game ourselves but we still needed music for it. Our supervisor, Andrew Blake, met Professor Shimojima and he helped set up the collaboration. Chika has composed some great music for the game which really adds to the fun and gives it a greater impact."
Left to right: Matt Manser, Marcus Brooks, Joseph Loe, Matej Navara
Course leader Andrew Blake, said: "I met Atsushi Shimojima at a Visual Languages conference in San Jose in September. Atsushi and his daughter have a particular interest in designing music for computer games. I told Atsushi I was the course leader for the Computer Science (Games) course at 91¶¶Òõ and might be able to help, hence the relationship between Greedy Gull and Chika-Pro, the name under which Atsushi and his daughter create music."
Mr Blake said of the new game: "It's great. I think it is a quirky, a frivolous bit of fun that quickly engrosses the player; exactly what such casual games should be."
Miss Shimojima is a musical prodigy who, despite having autism, is the driving force behind Chika-Pro.
Miss Shimojima started composing at the age of 11 and has now made hundreds of pieces of music, many of which are used in films and games. She is taught piano by Myrna Emata at Legato Music School, San Jose, and is mentored by James Gardiner, a composer with two Grammy nominations and 42 gold and platinum awards.
Professor Shimojima said: "Chika has tremendous musical talent so we created this production group to connect her music to society. This is the first time Chika-Pro has collaborated with students from the 91¶¶Òõ. I was interested in the fact that a group of students were building their own company to supply jobs to themselves. We are hoping to keep up the collaboration for further projects."
Mr Blake said he has been impressed by the students' entrepreneurial spirit: "I think Greedy Gull is doing a fantastic job. They are the first group of students within the faculty, as far as I am aware, who have set up their own business under the faculty placement scheme and are proving to be a credit to the university. I hope that they set a benchmark from which students in the future will be able to follow their own entrepreneurial aspirations."
Super Awesome Line Game was released on 30 November and is available to download for free on Android and iOS.