Renton Reporter, May 15, 2015

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SIFF-RENTON | The annual film festival returns to Renton May 21. [6]

FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2015

All City Champs! | The Hazen Highlanders won the All City Track Meet for the first time since 1995. [Sports 13 ]

Drug, alcohol, tobacco use down among Renton teens BY TRACEY COMPTON tcompton@rentonreporter.com

Mason Beckler, left, plays through his game ‘Lord of the Bats’ for the first time with a little help from project team co-leader Devin jensen. Beckler worked with Jensen’s team at DigiPen to create the cartoony side-scrolling game. BRIAN BECKLEY, Renton Reporter

Renton teen’s wish to design a video game granted with DigiPen’s wacky ‘Lord of the Bats’ side-scroller BY BRIAN BECKLEY bbeckley@rentonreporter.com

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Your Residential Specialists

Candidates begin to file for November BY BRIAN BECKLEY bbeckley@rentonreporter.com

fruit to save the bat kingdom from the evil Lord Zlo, started as sketches and ideas in Beckler’s notebooks. Meanwhile, at DigiPen, a team known as Project Asclepius - named for the Greek god of healing - was being formed by a pair of students hoping to do a little community service with the [ more GAME page 14 ]

Two more candidates for the City Council emerged during the early part of candidate filing week, which runs through today, Friday. As of mid-week, all of the previously announced candidates had filed for this year’s election, except Marcie Palmer, who has stated she is running for re-election. [ more FILING page 7 ]

206-949-1696 info@MarcieMaxwell.com www.MarcieMaxwell.com

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t’s not often you play a video game in front of an audience, but as Mason Beckler defeated the final boss in the new game “Lord of the Bats,” created by the folks at DigiPen in Redmond, the room erupted into applause. “Well, that was an experience and a half,” Beckler said with a laugh, causing the room to erupt again. It was the first time Beckler of Renton had played the game he helped design and both he and the game drew rave reviews from those watching. Beckler, 16, has cystic fibrosis and the Make-A-Wish Foundation and DigiPen teamed up to grant him his wish of designing a game, which is now available to play for free online. “It is exactly everything I hoped,” Beckler said after playing through the game’s levels. “It’s harder than I thought it was. And I thought it was hard to begin with!” “Lord of the Bats,” a side-scrolling, cartoonish game about Private Battede, a bat in a necktie tasked with finding a magic

The 2014 Washington Healthy Youth Survey found Renton students using drugs, alcohol and tobacco at a lower percentage than their peers across the state, with the exception of a handful of behaviors for 10th-grade students. The report is a statewide survey of some 223,000 students from grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 that was conducted by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) last year. More than 3,200 students in the Renton School District volunteered to participate in the survey. For the most part, Renton teens are smoking, using e-cigarettes and vaping, using prescription drugs and alcohol at a lower percentage than the state reports. Marijuana use and bullying were also lower in the district, except for reports by sophomores. More than 800 of the district’s 10th-grad[ more SURVEY page 5 ]


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