Three engineering grads from Memorial University of Newfoundland have teamed up to make the world a little more fun.

“We had this idea for a game that we wanted to try out,” recalled Source Studio CEO and founder Alex Brown. “During our last work term in engineering, we took four months as an entrepreneurial work term and we made a prototype of the game so we could … test it out, try some ideas.”

By the end of the four months, Brown and his classmates, Robert Rees, and Albert Chaulk, had created a working game with most main features completed. “We could play it and at that point we really liked the game, so we decided to keep going with it after we graduated.”

After refining the game for a few more years, it was finally released for sale through Steam, an online game distributer, early this October.

The result was ProtoGalaxy, a game in which mysterious and powerful aliens are attacking our galaxy, and it's up to you and your friends to stop them — you are humanity's last hope.

“The game is a multiplayer space shooter,” explained Brown. “We call it a space adventure and there are various features of exploration, standard arcade shooter action, puzzles, all combined into one package that should appeal to a wide audience.”

The game also includes a fun physics engine that is introduced through the gravity weapon, which can be used to pick up asteroids, other ships and even cardboard boxes to smash enemies and solve puzzles.

Brown said the company is excited about the level editor, where players can use the dozens of objects found in pre-existing levels to create puzzle-y, enemyfilled levels of their own to share with friends. “The whole team loves user-generated content; games like Starcraft and Little Big Planet, where you can make your own levels. We think that's an incredible feature, and it's something we wanted to include in our game at the very beginning.”

Though there is a single-player campaign, ProtoGalaxy is meant to be played in co-op mode, with up to four players battling aliens over a LAN or Internet connection. The game has been favourably reviewed by Australian gaming website MMGN and TotalBiscuit, a game-loving, cynical Brit who posts reviews of indie games on YouTube.

Though Source Studio started out as a school project, it has come a long way. In 2008 — the same year the company's founders graduated — Source Studio became a part of Memorial University's Genesis Centre, an incubator for high-growth technology companies.

“Persistence pays off,” Brown advised aspiring game developers. “It's definitely difficult starting up a business, but if you just keep pushing forward, working through it, you can get there.”

ProtoGalaxy is available for the PC, and can be purchased through Steam for $9.99.

For more information, visit www.sourcestudio.ca.