photo by: Emma Delk

The five months Ben Roberts, left, and Mac Parsons spent creating and designing their video game, “TheVentStalker” has paid off, as the game has gone viral on the platform Rec Room.

WHEELING — While most kids earn extra cash in the summer by opening a lemonade stand or mowing lawns, two local teenagers decided to take a less conventional route to profit: designing a video game.

Five months spent writing, designing and modeling their video game have paid off for Linsly School sophomore Mac Parsons and Wheeling Country Day Middle School student Ben Roberts. More than 235,000 people have played their creation, “TheVentStalker.”

Parsons and Roberts’ path to viral video game success began in 2021 when Parsons was Roberts’ counselor during Wheeling Country Day School Summer Camp.

Despite their age difference, the two became fast friends through their shared love of video games, particularly the gaming platform Rec Room. They had an affinity not only for playing games but for designing them.

“Mac had known for a while that I made games, and I knew that Mac was very good at drawing since he does digital arts,” Roberts said. “One day, I just said to him, ‘Hey, let’s see your skills in video game design,’ and he did really well.”

After Parsons’ initial game design trial, the friendship that began as counselor and camper soon switched to mentee and mentor while Roberts showed Parsons the ropes of video game design. Though Parsons already had a grasp of designing characters and objects, he had to learn the details of sound design, modeling, timing and coding in the game with Roberts’ help.

As the two worked more together, the idea to create a video game formed. In January, they decided to undertake the project under the moniker “DeviousInk,” signing a contract that included how profits from the game would be divided between the two.

Before designing the game, the pair had to map out its story and aesthetic.

“I was originally inspired by movies, shows, books and other forms of media that displayed unique entertainment from horror,” Parsons said. “Horror is a different type of enjoyment because it is a mix of thrill and humor, depending on the game.”

Parsons explained the two were inspired by “older horror themes.” The two settled on the setting of the “dark, cramped space of a vent” as the perfect destination for an unsettling horror game.

The game begins with the player in a facility that was shut down for an unexplained reason. To collect evidence to solve the mystery of my closed facility, the player collects ID cards of lost employees while avoiding the titular “vent stalker” monster that chases the player during the game.

To execute their vision for the game, the friends split up the project’s tasks. Parsons built and animated models for the games while Roberts was in charge of coding and audio creation.

To turn the concept into an actual game, the two spent many hours on the phone. These phone calls included discussions about coding and creating the game’s visuals, including the different shapes and textures of objects.

Roberts said the pair often drew inspiration from their own experiences on what to add to the game, taking note of creepy objects and places they encountered in real life.

Parsons and Roberts spent more than five months designing “TheVentStalker.”
(Photo Provided)

In addition to the look and feel of the game, other details the two had to iron out included its mechanics and the size of the game’s layout.

The two spent at least two hours working on the game every night. Roberts said his favorite part of the project was the “random funny conversations” they would have during late nights.

“What makes the process not as stressful as it could be is keeping everything laid back,” Parsons said. “We really tried not to take it too seriously and just had fun talking with each other.”

Though they kept a laid-back attitude, the two still experienced frustrating roadblocks that delayed the project. Other Rec Room players the two collaborated with for the project would sometimes not fulfill their roles, leading to the pair having to “fire” people for the first time.

“I learned valuable lessons about how to make the final decisions with people I work with,” Roberts noted. “If people are complaining, I would tell myself, ‘It’s your game. You can control who works on it.'”

Despite these setbacks, their digital creation began to unfold in front of them. Parsons recalled his excitement of taking teaser photos for the game and uploading trailers for the project online.

The two began beta testing it before the game’s release. They had their friends play through the game to see if any “bugs” or errors needed to be corrected.

“We just invited friends to go and play and tell us whatever goes wrong with it,” Parsons said. “Issues popped up, but they were fixed within a day. We learned there were some features for the game that we could not implement with many users playing the game simultaneously.”

After smoothing out the bugs, the two launched the game on July 27. Parsons noted that though the game had amassed a fanbase during the design process, the number of players during the first few days was “kind of low.”

“We had a pretty big fan base built up for the game because we told so many people, ‘Hey, this is in development, and we’re going to be releasing soon. We will not disappoint,'” Roberts said. “There was a slow slope of engagement at first, but once our fan base was there, we had a lot of people playing on it.”

As more players tried out the game, the two saw their project climb Rec Room’s popularity rankings to become one of the most played games on the website displayed on its trending games page.

The high frequency of players and the large number of people spending money through the game’s currency system have resulted in the two getting a real-life payday.

Mac Parsons’ mother, Mimi Parsons, knew her son and his friend had been creating a video game for fun over the summer. However, she did not realize the scope of the undertaking until she saw the video game’s popularity upon release.

“I knew they were making a video game, but I didn’t know how big it was going to be until they released it and Mac started to talk about how he’s making money,” Mimi Parsons said. “We were on vacation a few weeks ago, and we had to fill out a tax form for him to get paid, so it’s a serious, real thing.”

While her son enjoys the payday, Mimi Parsons noted that the game’s creation also gave her son valuable skills for the future.

“Even if, for some reason, they decide next year they’re done with designing games, it’s still a cool resume builder for college,” Mimi Parsons said. “I think the skills he learned while designing the game are very valuable, especially today, and I think it’s something he can use forever.”

The friends have already rolled up their sleeves and begun working on the next “four to six games” they plan to release next summer.

“Ben and I would call it the ‘grueling process’ while designing the game, but it is also a lot of fun,” Parsons said. “It was definitely more enjoyable than my summer reading.”

“What I’ve learned from Rec Room is really helpful for my future passion, which is designing even larger video games,” Roberts said. “It’s awesome to do something you love with your best friend while making money off it.”