I served as the main developer for the Viz Demo Disc, a “demo disc” style launcher for games selected for Vizagogo 32, then released it as a template project on GitHub.
Originally, the Viz Demo Disc was a project that I started when I found videos of some of the original PlayStation, GameCube, and PS2 demo discs that were common at the time, and loved their look and feel. As such, I made the original Viz Demo Disc as an homage to those demo discs, and to hone my skills during the winter break.
It was made for that semester’s vertical studio games except for one (the team never responded to my inquiry about sending the build over to put in). the new version was based off the code of this older build, but with significant UI and visual improvements.
The current iteration of the Viz Demo Disc was initially brought up after one of the peer teachers of that 2023 vertical studio, Abigail Blevins, asked me about the demo disc and asked if I could build an updated version for Vizagogo 32, a public exhibition for Texas A&M’s Visualization department to show off the year’s best works. I agreed, and over the next three weeks I first coordinated with Gus McClain, one of the main leaders of Vizagogo, to both check the feasibility of the project after submissions came in, then build the project (about a week and half). then testing and setting up the booths at the exhibition floor. The overall response we got was positive, with the Vizagogo staff asking if the project could be used in the future.
With this in mind, I released the VDD project as a template project onto GitHub, along with an explanation video shown here:
Overall, I had a lot of fun making this project, and I hope that it will have continued usage in the future!
CHRIS BRUNS 