Beat Lafayette – On a Web App

Get ready for "The Rivalry 150 Game Locker Challenge."

A web game app that will pit Lehigh University against Lafayette College in football, basketball, swimming and soccer competitions is being developed by Lehigh students as a run-up to the 150th playing of The Rivalry on Nov. 22 at Yankee Stadium.

The app, along with a trivia challenge, is expected to be available for play in early November via a web address that can be pulled up over mobile phones and computers. It will be available via Lehigh’s Facebook page. Plans also call for a Smartphone app, which would be released at a later date. 

“We don’t want folks to forget there’s a lot of brain power here,” said Lehigh’s Director of Media Relations Jordan Reese, acknowledging the wide attention being given to the upcoming football rivalry game in New York. “We wanted to highlight the academic strengths of our students and the interdisciplinary nature of the university.”

Marilyn Jones, associate professor of graphic design and head of the Fusion Studio student design agency, and Michael Spear, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, put the call out for designers and programmers to help create the web app in advance of the historic rivalry game.

Answering the call were programmers Sam Nguyen ‘17, Yin Luo ‘18, Bill Ulrich ‘18, Juliana Hong, Lai Zhang ‘16, and Stefan Gorski ‘18, as well as designers Christopher Herrera ’15, Jenny Mauric ’15, Carli Sukonik ’15, Ayelet Gat ’15 and Phoebe Tian ’15. 

The web app will set the stage for The Rivalry itself, which this year is expected to draw record crowds, given the milestone year and the venue. To add to the momentum, Lehigh or Lafayette will also be able to emerge as the overall winner of the game app. That winner, which is expected to be revealed during the rivalry game at Yankee Stadium, will be calculated by players’ cumulative points.

How it works

Users will be able to play as either Lehigh or Lafayette, with locker doors opening to the selection of games. They will find that the games get more challenging the longer they are able to survive in play, as they dodge defenders on the field in football, avoid opposing swimmers in meets (the swimmers can also disappear), shoot hoops in basketball and score goals in soccer.  

“I thought it would be a cool project to work on,” said Nguyen, who recognized the import of this year’s rivalry when he decided to join the project.

The students – which include computer science, engineering and graphic design majors – have been collaborating for the past month, spending 10 to 15 hours a week on everything from the movements of the animated characters to colorization to coding. All coding, graphics and illustrations are original, and the games were created from scratch.

Inspiration came from other apps. “We grew up on these games,” Mauric said.

Twice a week, the students come together at Wilbur Powerhouse to talk about user experience and functionality issues. On a recent weekday, Nguyen received feedback from Jones and fellow students on how fast the players should move on the football field, whether the soccer goalie should be ever present and other elements of the separate games.

With The Rivalry looming, students are under a time crunch for the app’s launch, but they anticipate the games to have appeal now as well as year after year.

To promote play among alumni, students, staff and faculty, the students plan to put up posters throughout the Lehigh and Lafayette campuses. They have ideas too for how they will present the web app at The Rivalry, where they hope the app will be shown over the big screens at Yankee Stadium.  

The students’ hopes?

“That people will like it,” said Herrera.

“That people will play it,” said Gat.

Story by Mary Ellen Alu
Photos by Christa Neu