2020 Games Studio Student Showcase

Imagine yourself stuck within the thick and treacherous Great Forest that is filled with uncertain obstacles that may stump the average person. Luckily for you, you are a masterful and fantastical mage with great control over the four elements. With the power to shoot out flaming fireballs, manipulate water sources, wield air currents, and generate large boulders from thin air, you have the potential to overcome the Great Forest's many obstacles and puzzles it has laid out before you. By implementing your bountiful magic, solve and traverse each puzzle-ridden level as they come in many forms, and involve many aspects in logic and physics. Explore and discover the various landscapes and areas as you try to find an escape through the seemingly never-ending Great Forest.

Blastov! Take to the skies and fight your way through hordes of robots to get the highest combo possible and impress the comrades. Stay in the air as long as possible and blast the robots into pieces!

• You have three trusty tools at your disposal to take on this heinous challenge. Propel yourself to new heights and deal massive damage with the rocket launcher! Unleash a barrage of bullets with the swift and speedy machine gun while dashing through the air! Grind along walls and platforms with the chainsaw!
• Our comrade Viktor Blastov has an ace up his sleeve that can assist in getting the highest combo possible...Time Manipulation! You are able to slow down time so that it's much easier to nail a bullet or rocket right between the eyes...assuming robots have eyes.
• How do you get a high combo score you ask? Keep your feet off the ground and string together impressive mid-air shots!

There is no right way to tackle this game so be creative and aim to get the highest score possible!

If you like breaking bots then it's time to recharge those quantum batteries and get ready to lock and download through the mines of Crystal Mech. Traverse through the crystalized mines as the malfunctioning mech, thwarting off your robotic brethren with a variety of different weapons and play styles to choose from. Crystal Mech is a top down, arcade-like experience where the objective is to obtain the highest score by traversing the deepest depths of the randomly generated mine, using the resources you have available to ensure your survival. As you turn more automatons into scrap metal, your once incapable mech will gain more score and become a true terminator through power levelling your stats, wielding new weapons and unlocking resourceful abilities. You'll want to keep on your toes however as your enemies will also upgrade their stats to become more powerful threats the further you travel. See how high your Crystal Mech score gets in your next cave carnage quest and see if you are worthy to be crowned the most advanced battle bot of them all.

This game is about heroes lost in time, You play as a young witch, a ruffian cowboy, a sleek ninja, and an experienced swordfighter, help them find their way through puzzles to return them back to their original time.

Following a map to a long-forgotten fantasy land, you do the only reasonable thing and set up a small town right on top. Unknown dangers and treasures await your townsfolk, so the town requires adventurers to protect it and explore the surrounding areas. However, the chaos that the adventuring lifestyle brings can often times cause more problems than it solves.

A turn-based roguelike city builder, where each day you have limited wealth to manage your city. As your city increases, it attracts more adventurers whose needs must be met. Chaos will inevitably ensue, so be ready to face all that running an adventuring town brings!

• Construct buildings!
• Attract adventurers!
• Read the news!
• Discover new building types!
• Go on quests!
• Fend off your inevitable demise...

It is up to you, the regional middle manager of the adventurers guild to grow this small hamlet into a bustling city. Will you stand the test of time, or will your works return to dust as many have before?

Do you like the zoo? Do you like penguins? Do you like chonky Penguins? If your answer is yes for any of those questions, then Penguin Adventures is the game for you. Play as a cheeky penguin with the intent of escaping the zoo. Help your fellow animal amigos by completing their specific puzzles and be sure to avoid those nasty security guards. The zoo is a vibrant place ready to be explored. Keep your penguin fashionable by collecting our hat easter eggs hidden around the zoo. Enjoy the journey and escape to freedom in Penguin Adventures.

Untitled Platforming Game puts you in control of an experimental coffee that has turned into a sentient parasite. An emergency has occurred and all the experiments have been set loose. The perfect opportunity for you to escape! Use your ability to turn into an irresistible cup of coffee and lure the other experiments into drinking you. Once ingested you have free reign over their mind and body, use each of the four enemies' signature skills to navigate through a series of platforming and puzzle-solving based challenges and make your escape from the lab.

Ever had one of those moments when you just didn't know what to say? Now you can experience it through the eyes of the socially anxious Tom, and help him Spill the Beans! Think carefully and avoid intrusive thoughts in this unconventional bullet-hell in order to help a guy out in awkward situations!

After staying up for a week straight doing an assignment, you need to traverse the suddenly ruined city and hand in all your hard work. Your sleep deprivation makes it hard to clearly see the world around you and time is running out, but nothing that a hot coffee can't fix! Pick from a range of delicious brews (with very practical and definitely not dangerous side effects) to help you through this challenging puzzle platformer; the quicker you get to the end and hand in your assignment, the higher grade you get!

Welcome to Project 8 2 _ 8 9, you are given one directive, survive at any cost.

Set in a dystopian cyber pixel world, the player is placed through various trials (levels) completing a set objective, given no other option, the player must survive as long as they can. The game follows a simple principle of dodging and interacting with the block obstacles.

From the over-the-top artificial lighting to the dark synthwave background music, the game aims to recapture the golden age of arcade video games from the 1970s to 80s and maintains the idea of replay value and simplicity. The dark nature insinuated from the visuals and sounds hints at a deeper meaning to the game's narrative, what is this project 82_89, who are giving these instructions, what is the meaning of these tasks.

Knock Knock is a suspenseful RPG game that follows two siblings playing a seemingly fun game of 'Knock and Run' (a.k.a Ding Dong Ditch). However, their enjoyment comes to an abrupt halt when they decide to play a trick on the neighbour their parents warned them about down the road, and in that instance, they disappeared.

Earth has been rendered uninhabitable. As humanity's last hope, it's up to you to hop on board the GGBW-3 and use its gravity bending powers to find a new expanse for us to live in!
In this 100% accurate aeronautic and astrophysics simulation, you will control your spaceship and explore the depths of space. The twist? You can bend gravity to your will in order to execute what scientists have deemed the world's most difficult orbital maneuvres. Do you have what it takes?

Zenith is a cyberpunk 2D platformer puzzle game where players must solve intricate puzzles and blast through platforming challenges. Players must manipulate time and space to traverse rooftops, escaping the city before it collapses. The game features a beautiful cyberpunk pixel art aesthetic, accompanied by a synth-wave soundtrack composed by Peter.

The protagonist is equipped with the 'Zenith' device, allowing them to rewind time and flip the pull of gravity. They traverse through three levels, with each focusing on a new mechanic. Spread throughout these levels are pairs of doors toggled by a button. Players must use their abilities to creatively toggle the right doors to escape the city in time.

Psychoscape is a fast-paced platformer that puts player's memory and timing skills to the test. You pay as the patient Robert who is trapped inside a mental asylum but is given the perfect opportunity to escape. Harness the power of Rob's hallucinations to create platforms to climb up the vents of the asylum. Use bounce pads, dodge sparking wires and even shoot yourself out of canons to propel yourself up and out of the vents. The odds are stacked against you, but with the help of your hallucinations, can you escape?

The sandman's maze is a game where all of a player's typical movement has been removed and the only thing they can control is the rotation of the map. Players must use their rotation ability to navigate a series of puzzles which progressively introduce new mechanics designed to test the adaptability and problem solving of the player. The brilliance of this game lies in its simplicity, we have designed the game to teach the player the rules as their are playing. The sandmans maze is designed to challenge your adaptability and problem solving, not your patience.

Coffee addiction is a case for our character. Welcome Coffury, that boy is a coffee connoisseur and he doesn't like to miss a cuppa once he sees one. He even avoids a girl who loves him just to get another cuppa.

However, everything is a remedy and poison without the right use. Coffury feels bad when he drinks a lot of cups and gets hyperactive. His heart starts to beat faster, he feels coffee drunkness and has to get home by the end of the day. In this game, you spend an ordinary day being Coffury. So help him to get home!

Drac Boy, the teenage son of Dracula is hungry, but not for blood. The only thing that can quench his thirst now is the world largest and most delicious cupcake.

Guide Drac Boy past obstacles and diabolical traps designed by none other than Dracula himself. Use all your skill and incredible Vampire abilities to reach your goal in this 2D action platformer inspired by Super Mario and Super MeatBoy.

Lost in a mysterious forest without supplies, only you can help yourself. Running constantly in the dark is the only way to find home. Explore unknown areas and avoid thrilling traps. Now, it is time for you to concentrate on the ignored routes. Embrace the darkness.

Pattern Chess is a competitive strategy game of pattern recognition. In this deceptively simple game, players compete by moving pawns on the board in order to match patterns on cards, gaining points and disrupting opponents at the same time. Do you have the wit and grit it takes to become the Grandmaster of Pattern Chess?

Shapeshifter is a game of strategy, cooperation and betrayal. An Alien has violently invaded your spacecraft, leaving it in desperate need of repair. Humans, your mission is to repair the spacecraft at all costs using your unique abilities, before the Alien picks you all off. This cunning creature will change forms to sow confusion and hostility, be wary of who you make friends with as they could end up being your downfall.

The Great Galaxy Race is a game that pits 3 to 4 players against each other in an epic race around the galaxy. Each player is an athlete representing their planet in the final event of the Olympic Space Games – The Great Galaxy Race. Players will manoeuvre their rocket through an ever-changing maze, filled with wormholes and exploding stars. Players must collect three flags from their opponent's planets and return to their home planet. The first one to do this is declared the winner.

Welcome to Jungle Rush. Jungle Rush is a board game designed to bring out an individual's competitive spirit and allows players to outplay and outwit their opponents using various abilities and tactics. Inspired by Pummel Party and Monopoly, players will battle it out in a free-for-all fashion, or they may choose to form alliances and work together. Either way, there can only be one person left standing to be crowned the winner.

This project aims to explore the feasibility and performance of a generative audio engine within a traditional gaming environment. Although graphics technologies have progressed rapidly alongside hardware advances, most audio engines have remained fairly stagnant. Utilizing generative audio, dynamic soundscapes can be two-way linked to player actions, allowing the user's movement to control the sound and the sound to control user movement. Additionally, this generative audio system allows for typically immutable parameters, such as key transposition, instrument distortion, and tempo, to be changed at runtime with little noticeable artifacting.

This particular project showcases these principles in a top-down shooter environment. Each instrument of the backing track is rendered at runtime and their volume is controlled by a series of virtual audio nodes, with levels controlled by the player's proximity to each node. Additionally, animations and the firing of the player's weapon are synchronized to various music channels, with each action being triggered with the same call that creates the audio note. Finally, predefined parameter control regions allow for the smooth shifting of key, phrase, and tempo throughout the game.

This immensely challenging third-person platformer is a prototype made to assist in the study of game design and development. The goals behind this project were to assess the difficulty in not only developing portal mechanics, but finding multiple methods of implementation in a third-person perspective, analysing the factors which have most impact on player immersion.

Starfighter is a space-fighting game where your objective is to eliminate enemy spaceships. The enemies come in increasingly large waves, and do increasingly large amounts of damage, making survival harder and harder as you progress through the rounds. You can choose one of three classes to fight with:

• Lightweight Class: a small ship designed for agility that is extremely manoeuvrable but has weaker weaponry and minimal shields
• Medium Class: a medium ship with moderate firepower, manoeuvrability, and shielding
Heavy Class: a large ship with extreme firepower and shielding, but very sluggish controls

Once you've chosen a class and a callsign, your game will be saved, and you can continue playing with your chosen character at any time. Finally, in Starfighter you can customise the look of your ship by changing the colour of its highlights, and also making those highlights glow.

All the group members who made this project are very passionate about music so we decided to make a graphics project related to music. We achieved this through making a band performance that changes depending on the music including with how the user interacts with the environment inluding through a GUI menu, the lighting or the camera angle. In the end we made this band performance take place in a open park with snow and a sunset.

Growing Dark is an interactive animation following a person returning home in an unknown neighborhood. Along the way, they encounter a mysterious shadow creature, hell-bent on finding another human host to inhabit. With nowhere to run but unfamiliar, crowded streets, a chase ensues. Players wind through several narrow corridors, branching pathways, and obstacles, avoiding death all the while.

Gameplay-wise, Growing Dark focuses primarily QuickTime events to change the story outcome, allowing for more cinematic camera and player movements. Each event can be passed or failed, resulting in numerous varied outcomes depending on the player's reaction times and choices. Additionally, the more rigid player movement enables stronger scripted story elements, adding to the overall intensity of the experience.

Kaleidoscope is a short animation that follows the main character, The Fawn, as it finds its way home with the help of its new friend, The Butterfly. The project was developed over the semester, from storyboards to a completed animation developed in the Unity Game Engine. We utilise various methods of animating, including keyframing, physically-based animation, inverse kinematics and procedural shader animation to bring our characters and environments to life