Gamers Test Cornell Students' Best Efforts in Game Design Showcase
Some of the best games college developers can come up
with
will be tested May 15 when the Game
Design Initiative at Cornell (GDIAC) holds
its annual Game Design Showcase.
That's when students in GDIAC game design courses
take their
final exams — which means allowing members of the public to try out
their PC
and mobile games and then vote for their favorites.
The GDIAC at Cornell
University in Ithaca, NY, was launched in
2001 offering minor degree programs in game design. At the end of
each school year, it invites the public to play the games students have
created
in their classes. The showcase will take place 4-7 p.m. Friday,
May 15,
in the ACCEL Lab in Carpenter Hall on the Cornell campus.
Participants will be able to vote on their favorites
and an
awards ceremony will take place shortly before the end of the event, at
6:45
p.m.
A 2013 award winner, "Gathering Sky" (formerly known
as "Apsis"),
won the 2014 "Most Promising Indie" Award at the Casual Connect
conference of
gaming professionals and is now being prepared for commercial release.
The 2014
GDIAC Showcase winner, "Beam," is available from the Google App Store
and
another 2014 winner, "Dash," is being prepared for commercial release.
Among this year's entries that gamers can try out
are:
- "Brutus, Break," in which a sidekick tries to keep
your clumsy
hero alive;
- "Zombeats," where you have to follow the beat of the
music to
sneak past hordes of hungry zombies;
- "Iridescence" uses lights and lanterns to guide a
moth to
safety; and
- "Ersatz" turns you into a thief with the power of
time travel
trying to pull off the greatest heist in history.
GDIAC, which also has an outreach program for middle
and high
school students in the Ithaca area, was one of the first United States
undergraduate programs
in game design and a number of alumni now work at major game companies.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.