Cornell University witnesses games debut at GDIAC showcase

Dance through a rowdy house party, fight off dangerous fruit and pull a fast one on a bubble gum cartel at the Game Design Initiative at Cornell (GDIAC) showcase, held Saturday, May 20 from 1-4 p.m. in Clark Atrium in the Physical Sciences Building.

The event allows students in the CIS 3152 Intro to Game Development and CIS 4152 Advanced Game Development courses to show off their final projects. Members of the general public are invited to play the games and vote for their favorites. At the end of the showcase, the most popular games will receive awards.

“The student teams have created some especially innovative titles this year with impressive graphics and unusual game mechanics,” said Walker White, M.S. ’98, Ph.D. ’00, senior lecturer, Stephen H. Weiss Provost’s Teaching Fellow and GDIAC director in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

For example, the showcase will feature Reharmonia, the first mobile “strand game,” a genre where players deliver cargo between isolated locations. In Reharmonia, players must balance an unwieldy backpack as they travel across an unpredictable landscape. In another game, Pivot, players explore a 3D world, viewing it through constantly shifting 2D cross-sections.

A total of 21 PC and mobile games will be available to play.