May 28, 2025
By Patricia Waldron
While some students were writing their last final exam, others were playing theirs – demoing their video games for friends, family and gamers at the Game Design Initiative at Cornell’s (GDIAC) 2025 Games Showcase, held May 17, 1-4 p.m. in the Physical Sciences building.
More than 475 people attended the event to try out the new games and vote for their favorite. The showcase was the final exam for students in Cornell’s game design courses and featured desktop games from the intro courses and mobile games from the advanced course. In each class, teams of eight to 10 students – a mix of programmers, artists, sound designers, and UX designers – developed and marketed a computer game, which is available for public download.
“The grade for these projects depends upon how fun something is, and the only way you can test that is to get people playing it,” said Walker White, M.S. ’98, Ph.D. ’00, senior lecturer and director of GDIAC in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.
Daedalus, a desktop survival strategy game where players navigate a labyrinth and set traps for creatures sent by angry Greek gods, took home the Audience Choice Award in the desktop category.
Mikael Andreasyan ’28 was a programmer and sound designer for the game, and is potentially interested in pursuing a career in game design. He said the GDIAC program is a major reason he chose to study computer science at Cornell.
“Every single person on my team was someone who really wanted to make the best version of the game,” he said. “Everyone loved these games so much that I think it's one of the reasons that we just ended up with, I think, one of the best games.”
His team plans to polish the game and release it on Steam, a digital storefront for games.
Among the mobile entries, Sweet Sweet Betrayal took home the Judge’s Choice Award. In this multiplayer platformer game, sugar gliders sail through the forest, looking for treasure and sabotaging each other along the way.
“We wanted to create a cute and chaotic game where you get competitive with your friends,”said Alanna Cooney ’26, an information science and Asian studies major who served as design lead for her team.
Cooney said that she valued having the opportunity to work on a team and create a real game as part of the course. “To combine our various skill sets together and put them into a whole project is a really great experience,” she said. “It's a lot of work, but it’s very rewarding.”
White recruited a team of judges: Ben Kalb, a local game developer who runs Blanket Fort Games; Michael Clarkson, Ph.D. ‘10, a Steven H. Weiss Provost’s Teaching Fellow and senior lecturer in Cornell Bowers CIS; and Erik Andersen, formerly an assistant professor of computer science at Cornell who used to teach game design courses, and who is now an independent video game developer.
Andersen, who has judged the showcase multiple times, was impressed by the caliber of the games.
“I know the passion the students have for it,” Andersen said. “It just takes a tremendous amount of effort. I think they have worked to a degree that really is exceptional.”
The following games received awards:
Most Polished
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Gone Astray (desktop) – An astronaut dog named Laika must navigate the wreckage of their spaceship – using just gravity and magnetic boots – to reach the escape pod and head home.
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Le Goosery Store (mobile) – Geese running a grocery store use strategy to prevent thieving raccoons from running off with their produce.
Judge’s Choice
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Cartastrophe (desktop) – A college student at a grocery store must quickly collect items from their mom’s shopping list – dodging other shoppers, spills and thieves – before she checks out.
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Sweet Sweet Betrayal (mobile) – Players compete as brightly colored sugar gliders racing through the jungle, setting traps to sabotage each other and seeking treasure.
Audience Choice
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Daedalus (desktop) – The architect Daedalus from Greek mythology must protect his forge by laying traps to fend off creatures sent by the god Hades.
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Trigger Happy (mobile) – In a 1920s Chicago speakeasy, players “bluff, shoot and steal” their way through high-stakes card games.
During the awards ceremony, White said this will be the last year the showcase is held in the Physical Sciences Building. In accordance with one of Provost Kavita Bala’s final requests as former dean of the college, future showcases will occur in the new Cornell Bowers CIS building, which is scheduled to open this summer.
Patricia Waldron is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.