Game Design and Development student projects

Student-Created Games

Students make games throughout their coursework and spend much of their senior year on a capstone project. Here are a few examples of student-created games:

Welcome To The Wired

By: Cryonix Interactive LTD.

In the future, the Real World, and the Digital Realm started to overlap. Destroying both universes. The last human, blessed with the power to swap universes at will, and a voice from the Digital Realm, who we know nothing about, embark on their quest to reset the universe to before the overlap occured. Can they achieve their goal before the Corruption consumes everything?

Line by Line

By: Tilak Vyas

Line by Line is a collaborative poetry game rooted in the values of creative effort and the dismantling of poetic barriers. Designed in response to educational research on poetry in classrooms, it invites players to engage with poetic expression without the burden of rigid requirements, fostering informed, imaginative choices through flexible card play.

With an emphasis on student agency and poetic experimentation, Line by Line encourages players to explore unfamiliar styles and devices, reducing competitive pressure and nurturing a shared creative process. Inspired by Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, the game seeks to leave players not only with a finished poem but with renewed confidence and tools for future attempts.

Debt's Demise

By: Joseph Kissoon

Debt's Demise is a cooperative deck building game designed in collaboration with the Revolution to Free Generations organization as a way to introduce financial literacy in a easily digestible format.

Players defeat monsters that represent different kinds of debt, by paying these debts off. Players can earn money through a variety of means such as stocks, investing, compound interest, etc. The players' goal is to defeat the debts while keeping their Credit Score high enough to not claim bankruptcy.

Nature's Guardians

By: Alex Kulenkamp

Nature's Guardians is a 1-4 player co-op board game that utilizes game-based learning to teach players about Indigenous communities and resource management within the Ring of Fire in Ontario.

Players work together using their unique guardian powers to collect and spend resources to protect the land tiles from the miners who want to expand over the whole board. When miner cards are revealed, they expand onto unprotected tiles and release carbon emissions into the atmosphere, affecting the plants and animals in the area. Will the players be able to work together to protect the land from the miners and win the game?

The Dream Team

By: Richard Frank - MotionTrout Studios

This game was designed by Richard Frank of MotionTrout Studios. It's intended to serve to simulate the activities of a seedy defense lawyer.

The trial of ultimate acquittal of OJ Simpsons alleged double murder shook news media at the time. The trial included fantastical dramatic displays such as Johnny Cochrane's famous rhyming non-sequitor that has been parodied in popular media. OJ Simpson's constant smug grin throughout the trial proceedings is a sobering reminder that those who have the means can get away with anything.

For more information relating to the Murder Trial of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman you can find details on Wikipedia

Dramatic Irony

The closeted transgender high school experience - with a Shakespearean twist.  Navigate the last 6 weeks of high school and interact with a variety of characters how you want to - and just try to survive!  Dramatic Irony is a visual novel about my own experiences as a closeted trans male in high school.  It does not represent the transgender experience as a whole.  This game does contain acts of misgendering and other uncomfortable situations.

Blank Canvas 

By: Joshua Pacheco, Thomas Eduardo Martinez, Franco Lee, and Grady Tarlin. Music by Ricardo Lasso

Hotel Avaritia

By: Marry Harry

Hotel Avaritia is a dialogue-heavy, story-driven mystery game set in a hotel run by demons. You play as Ramsey, an investigator for the supernatural organization The Bureau, an organization interested in keeping supernaturals hidden and humans safe. You are tasked with investigating Hotel Avaritia, a hotel run and owned by Roger, an infamous greed demon who's tasked himself with housing his demon acquaintances. Each demon in the hotel represents a different one of the seven deadly sins, and Ramsey has to interview each of them to find out the whats whats of a mysterious event that occurred in the hotel during the summer. Will Ramsey figure out who caused this event?

Intergalatic Cook-Off 

By: Mongoose Games

This game is a high stakes cooking competition where you travel the galaxy, collect exotic ingredients, and impress the compeition!

Obstacles 

By: Alia Skillman

Obstacles is a short, interactive story game designed for use by and in partnership with the Soroptimist Foundation of Canada. The game is geared towards young women in high school, and features a diverse cast of characters with unique backstories, family lives, and obstacles in their path to achieving their dreams.

Research Projects and Game Jams

Outside of class, some students participate in game jams, which are short-term development activities.  Others are funded to work with faculty members on research projects.  Here are a few games that came from those activities:

Masks 

By: Nedward Rehanek, Joshua Shaw, and Maya Harry

Masks was the winner of the Gamerella Game Jam in 2020. In the game you play as an autistic woman, Harriet, trying to navigate life. You have to make sure she’s productive while also managing how the world around her sees her.

Reflections of Laurier Brantford 

By: Robert Durant, Samantha Graham, Lauren Sipkas-MacPherson, Konor Legault, and Scott Nicholson

Reflections was a puzzle-based live action game inspired by Escape Room design concepts that was designed and run for Criminology alumni on the Laurier Brantford campus for Homecoming 2019.  The event ended up winning the Gold Medal for the Best Alumni Event of 2020 from the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education.

Smaller Class Projects

In many classes, students will develop several games over the course of the semester.  Here are some examples of games that students made over a few weeks for specific class project:

Amoeba 

By: Lucas Leprince

Ameoba is a puzzle platformer where you control both characters simultaneously. The controls used to affect the two amoebas, so you must carefully navigate the level to get everyone to the end without hitting any hand sanitizers.

Koje-do Escape from Compound 79 

By: Laura, Tyrone, Brayden, and Dayne

A 2-4 player board game in which the players have been captured as prisoners of war and must escape the compound before its too late. The players must take turns to sneak around the compound and avoid the constantly rotating spotlight in the centre of the map. This document contains the rules to a board game developed for class.

Fearless Frizzle

Stuffies are more than just toys. They protect their children through the night.
Play as Frizzle, little Aggie's new plush fox. Keep the lights on, keep shadows away, and don't wake anyone up!