The Game Science and Design program in Northeastern University’s College of Arts Media and Design (CAMD) had a strong presence at the 2019 PAX East gaming convention. The Northeastern University booth, which was located in the main Expo Hall, showcased a wide range of student-made playable games and projects, including PC games, printable paper games, and AR/VR games. The booth also included an eye-tracking and biometrics station, managed by fully trained graduate students. The event was an opportunity to highlight the professional, interdisciplinary, and optimized games that students in the master’s program are currently creating.

One team that had their work displayed at PAX East was the group behind Hexagami. Three MS in Game Science and Design students, Ruiming Wang, Gina Fabio, and Alex Coburn contributed to this AR/VR game that challenges players to virtually travel through the world and restore life and color to it by solving movement-based puzzles. Ruiming was the developer, while Gina did the art, and Alex took care of the level design.

In addition to the graduate student team behind Hexagami, another team that had their work displayed at PAX East also included three graduate students in the MS in Game Science and Design program: M. Feyyaz Sonbudak, Yuxuan Liu, Haowei Yu. Their game, entitled Dead Robots Society, is a cooperative survival game, but with secret identities, that takes place on a new planet that humans discovered. All roles (identities) have a different winning condition, and players try to reach their own winning condition while at the same time, cooperating with other players. According to the games creators, players “have to bluff and play the politics and blame game.”

Chaima Jemmali, who is earning her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) at Northeastern in the field of computer and information sciences, also played a major role at PAX East. She was one of the students who managed the eye-tracking and biometrics station. She also had a game of her own on display, entitled May’s Journey, an educational game that supports learning of basic programming concepts. In the game, players solve puzzles and interact with the environment by typing in a custom programming language. During her time at Northeastern University, Chaima has worked closely with Dr. Magy Seif El-Nasr, Associate Professor.

Last, Games graduate student Clarence Hann displayed his work, entitled Claiming the Throne. Clarence, who is a gameplay programmer and developer, has a background in software engineering and developed this game to be a two-player turn-based strategy game where two princes command their army to escort them to the capital in order to inherit the throne. It was well received by PAX players and passers-by.

Northeastern’s presence at PAX East was exciting and memorable, and displayed student-made games as well as the latest AR/VR technology. Thank you to our talented Games graduate students who participated and to everyone who stopped by our booth. To view more photos from the Northeastern booth at PAX East, click here.