A water balloon thrown by neighbor kids pelts your treehouse. With water balloons and squirt guns in hand, you fire back.

The game is on.

Students in a new art and design class created a game, Treefort Wars, which has made it to the final round of judging in the sixth annual Independent Games Festival.

The game is one of 10 finalists from around the world in the category of Student Showcase Selections. Other finalists were from universities as far away as Sweden and as close as Georgia.

The contest has two divisions, commercial and student. The student division had 57 entries from 18 countries.

Treefort Wars starts by a team of five friends building a tree fort in the backyard. When the fort is built, players start soaking the neighbor’s team with water balloons. The goal is to pummel opponents with as many water balloons as possible, until they quit. The last player standing wins. Steve Herrnstadt, associate professor of art and design, said the game is attractive to all ages because of its non-violent nature, and is the “ultimate strategic backyard water battle.”

He said students working together on the games make all the decisions, from choosing who joins their team to asking someone to leave the project if the team thinks the person is not contributing fairly. Herrnstadt said he is only there to give an extra push when they need it.

“Students understand the gestalt of working together,” Herrnstadt said. “They can take real life experience from this course.”

The growing popularity of computer and video games has spawned new interest in the job market for people who want to go into this field. This led to the creation of a new art class on campus.

Herrnstadt introduced a new Art Information Systems class, ArtIS 409X. The class was started as an independent study last semester and became a scheduled class this semester.

The class involves disciplines from computer science, music, art and design, engineering and journalism.

“The one common link among these students is gaming,” Herrnstadt said. “They have a passion for it.”

His motivation for launching the course came from his own passion for gaming as well as the growing need for innovative game designs, Herrnstadt said.

The concept for the class had been building for five or six years, he said.

Hernstadt observed a growing number of people wanting to go into the computer and video game design field, but there are only a handful of programs in the nation that help prepare students for such a design field, he said. With more classes like ArtIS 409X out there, more people in the United States will be able to perform these design jobs, Hernstadt said.

Most of the people who go into the field just pick it up and learn on their own or take areas of a different field and apply it to the position, said Herrnstadt, who has worked for an interactive media company. He said there are few places where people can receive structured learning.

Most design jobs are going overseas to countries where there is newer technology and cheaper labor, Herrnstadt said. Classes training more people in the United States, such as his, will hopefully attract jobs lost overseas, he said.

“This class is a realistic way to prepare for a job,” said Tyler Streeter, graduate student in human computer interaction and Treefort Wars member.

The class is by permission of the instructor, and Herrnstadt said he looks for people who are talented, willing to work and have an interest in game development.

At the beginning of the semester, new students or those who are not already involved with a project work on ideas for new projects. The students then decide which ideas will go into development and start working on games to present for continuation at the end of the semester. Later on, students decide which games will be carried over and which will be put on the back burner.

Three games were continued from last semester. Treefort Wars was one of them.

The team is still working to make the game even better by working out scenarios and adding characters and actions. Even though the game has already been judged and selected for the finals, the team is able to make adjustments when they attend the festival in March. Depending on the outcome of the festival, the team will either continue to improve Treefort Wars or move on to a new project.

Treefort Wars can be checked out at http://sandbox.design.iastate.edu/treefort.