Video game ‘Sect Machina’ is a product of perseverance
After nearly getting scrapped on two different occasions, a group of video game minor students released the demo version of their video game “Sect Machina.” The game is set in a world overtaken by spiders, and users play as the last remaining butterfly. Screenshots by NICHOLAS DE LUCCA, Features/Entertainment Editor
Sometimes a TikTok video is all you need to get the creative juices flowing. In search of an idea for his video game minor thesis project, senior English major Fabian Bautista would find his inspiration through a mindless scrolling session on the social media platform.
Alongside his creative partner Victoria Taurizano, the two would open their apps to starkly different videos: one playing music from the CyberPunk 2077 soundtrack (a video game set in the high-tech, dystopian future), the other featuring a praying mantis going toe-to-toe with a welding laser. The simultaneous playing of these videos would find a beautiful cohesion in Bautista’s mind.
“It looked like the grasshopper was fighting this robot, and I started thinking, ‘What if a bunch of bugs were in Cyberpunk (2077)?’” Bautista told The Panther. “I kept thinking about it, like what if they were in mech suits? It kept snowballing and snowballing. It was like a giant lightning strike of the perfect elements coming together in the most random ways.”
“It looked like the grasshopper was fighting this robot, and I started thinking, ‘What if a bunch of bugs were in Cyberpunk (2077)?’ I kept thinking about it, like what if they were in mech suits? It kept snowballing and snowballing. It was like a giant lightning strike of the perfect elements coming together in the most random ways.”
After a year of assembling a creative team, endless nights of coding and overcoming having their project nearly axed twice, Batista and Taurizano’s brain-child resulted in the video game “Sect Machina.” Players of the game take on the role of Mona, the last butterfly remaining in a world overtaken by spiders. Bautista described it as a mix between “Hollow Knight,” “CyberPunk 2077,” “Metroid” and “Castlevania.” The game was awarded Most Polished Game at the GameSig IEEE competition at California State University, Fullerton in April.
“Sect Machina” is inspired by two TikTok videos, one of which featured music from the 2020 game Cyberpunk 2077 while the other depicts a praying mantis confronted with a welding laser. The game also takes inspiration from “Hollow Knight,” “Metroid” and “Castlevania.”
Bautista recalled how their project nearly met its end twice. The first came after Bautista had to take some time off due to a personal issue, which led to the group nearly dissolving. The second came during the interterm between the fall and spring semesters in 2023. A change in the curriculum shifted the emphasis of the video game minor to individual coding skills instead of a group game — meaning many of the collaborative thesis projects would have to be finished on the student’s own time.
Bautista and Taurizano had to push to keep “Sect Machina” alive, eventually being afforded the opportunity to pursue the game as an independent project for credit.
“I remember staring at a wall and telling (Taurizano), ‘We didn’t go down the first time, we’re not going down here…’” Bautista said. “It did always feel like we were at odds with Chapman. It was an underestimation of me and (Taurizano’s) leadership skills because no matter what, we made sure our team never crunched, and we always made sure our team was happy.”
Aaron Grossmann, a first-year graduate student in the creative writing program, served as one of the writers for “Sect Machina.” He explained how users will go from location to location as Mona “bashing baddies with a baseball bat.” Since Mona suffered a near-fatal wound during the spider’s coup, her health bar is consistently dropping. Players must find ways to acquire charges that will temporarily heal Mona’s cybernetic heart.
Senior creative writing major Willoh Tyler knew she wanted to join the “Sect Machina” team after hearing Bautista and Taurizano’s initial pitch. She would serve as a narrative designer and assistant producer, praising the passion of the team and the intimate work environment they fostered to ensure each individual could adequately contribute.
“I really liked being part of the person-centric approach — really talking with people about what they can do,” Tyler said. “It wasn’t just, ‘We need you to do this by this time.’ We’re students. We’re a group of human beings working on a piece of art. I feel like in some places, it feels like you’re cogs in the machine meant to print out products for money. This was more about our passion and our commitment to the idea that we want to actualize. That’s a very human thing — not a machine thing.”
The team’s passion for video games all stems from childhood memories. For Grossmann, it was playing the story mode on “Super Smash Bros. Brawl.” For Tyler, it was sitting on her dad’s lap and watching him play “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.”
“Sect Machina” won Most Polished Game during the GameSig IEEE competition in April.
For Bautista, it was sneaking into his older brother’s room at the age of three and accidentally wiping the data cards on a PS1 version of Spyro the Dragon. He would go on to teach himself JavaScript in order to learn how to code, which allowed him to occasionally step in as a coder on “Sect Machina” while using Corgi Engine. However, he still doesn’t consider himself a coder.
“I remember just staring at my screen at seven in the morning — 14th hour in working — and just crying while coding,” Bautista said. “I was just bawling my eyes out like, ‘Please, for the love of God, work.’ And then my other programmer comes in and fixes a single line in five minutes… When you get it, it feels amazing. It’s like euphoria on a different level. But when you don’t get it, it’s so traumatizing.”
After 12 months, the demo version of “Sect Machina” was launched. Grossmann explained his reaction to playing the completed demo of the game for the first time.
“Honestly, my mind was completely blown,” Grossmann said. “I fell in love with the game when I played our finished project for the first time. It’s something that I’m incredibly proud of. I ended up exploring the entire thing, and I would be happy to do it again.”
Tyler echoed Grossmann’s testament about playing the finished game.
“There was this level of accomplishment and relief,” Tyler said. “The first week it came out, I still felt the stress and tension — like my body hadn’t realized yet that it’s done. It’s such a joy to check back on the Steam page and check on everyone’s reviews, no matter the level of excitement they have. It’s really special to see how people have approached this game — a game we’ve been so close to for 12 months. It’s really quite beautiful.”
The group is currently taking a break from expanding “Sect Machina” out of its demo version, which is available to play for free on Steam. Grossmann told The Panther he hopes that they can all come together in the future and build out the world they’ve conceptualized.
“There are things that we can improve on that I know we could just nail down,” Grossmann said. “If we have the opportunity to — and I greatly hope that we do — we have a larger story planned for the full game. I think that we can take the lessons learned from building our demo and we can use that to just build and build and fully fill out this world.”
No matter what the future holds, Tyler is grateful for the end product and the “bend but don’t break” attitude of the team.
“Perseverance was the keyword with our group,” Tyler said. “Despite everything that was thrown at us, we kept doing it. We didn’t sacrifice our humanity in order to get the work done. We celebrated it.”
“There was this level of accomplishment and relief. The first week it came out, I still felt the stress and tension — like my body hadn’t realized yet that it’s done. It’s such a joy to check back on the Steam page and check on everyone’s reviews, no matter the level of excitement they have. It’s really special to see how people have approached this game — a game we’ve been so close to for 12 months. It’s really quite beautiful.”
