For Crossroads alumnus Ramon Miland, an interest in game development began with curiosity: experimenting with game engines, learning to program, and eventually creating his own games.

Today, that curiosity has grown into a collaborative game-development project at Rochester Institute of Technology, where Ramon is helping lead a student team developing Unholy Roller, a bowling-inspired dungeon-crawler currently in development for computers.

Ramon first began exploring game development while he was in high school as a Crossroads scholar. His experience in Carnegie Mellon University’s CS Scholars program, made possible through his Crossroads' SPICE (Scholars Participating in Career Exploration) experience, helped deepen his interest in computer science. The four-week summer program gives high school students an opportunity to explore computer science through coursework, hands-on projects, mentorship, and other experiences.

An Advanced Placement Computer Science course gave Ramon another opportunity to explore that interest. While taking the course, he studied game development independently and began creating games in Java as a hobby. 

At Rochester Institute of Technology, that interest became a more serious pursuit. Unholy Roller began as a class project before evolving into a larger collaborative effort. As the project developed, the team transitioned to Godot, an open-source game engine, allowing them to focus their time on designing and building the game rather than creating their own underlying engine.

Ramon now serves as the project’s team lead, lead producer, and lead developer. He helps coordinate schedules, document the team’s work, support his teammates, and build the systems that make the game’s overall gameplay possible.

But Ramon is quick to emphasize that Unholy Roller is a team accomplishment.

The project brings together students with different areas of expertise, including programming, art, level design, audio, and marketing. Ramon says he was fortunate to bring together talented people from his cohort, but he also emphasizes that the team’s progress comes from everyone giving their full effort to the project.

That collaborative experience has also shaped Ramon’s understanding of leadership. Although he has taken on significant responsibility for coordinating the project, his strongest interests remain on the creative and technical side of game development. As he looks toward graduation, he is not yet sure exactly where his career will take him, but he knows he is most interested in programming, systems, and gameplay design.

Turning an Idea Into a Game

One of the resources that has played an important role in the team’s development is Rochester Institute of Technology’s MAGIC Maker Program. The program supports students working on digital media projects, including interactive projects such as games.

Unholy Roller progressed through the program’s three stages: prototype, production, and publishing. The program provided the team with valuable feedback and production support as the students moved the game forward.

For Ramon’s team, that support helped them think through both the creative and practical sides of game development. Feedback from industry professionals led the team to make major shifts in its design vision. Feedback from the program also helped the team establish a production timeline and work through the many pieces involved in bringing a game from an idea toward publication. Ramon also credited program resources, including stipends, as crucial to the team’s progress. 

The program also helped create opportunities for the team to showcase its work, including at PAX East, a major gaming convention in Boston. 

For a group of students building a game while completing their degrees, those resources and experiences have helped move Unholy Roller from a class project toward a finished product.

What’s Next for Unholy Roller?

Unholy Roller is currently available on Steam as a playtest, giving players an opportunity to experience the game while the team continues development.

The concept combines the familiar world of bowling with the exploration and combat mechanics of a dungeon crawler. Players guide a bowling ball through rooms, defeating pin enemies and clearing each area to progress.

The team is currently working toward a planned summer 2027 release. In the meantime, growing awareness of the game and building its Steam wishlist are important steps as development continues.

For Ramon, though, the project is about more than eventually releasing a game. It has given him the opportunity to work alongside talented peers, take on meaningful responsibilities, and experience what it takes to move a game from an idea to a functioning project.

It is also another step in a path that began years earlier, when a Crossroads scholar discovered an interest in programming and began wondering what he could create.

As Ramon continues to figure out where his career will take him, Unholy Roller is giving him—and his teammates—a chance to find out what they can build together.