4 games move toward production after the annual Game Design Shark Tank competition
Four teams advanced during the annual Game Design Shark Tank event held in early December last semester. Each year, student teams pitch video game ideas that they worked on during the semester to industry professionals.
The teams pitched their game ideas to Allison Salmon of Shell Games, Mitch Cronin of Humble Games, and Robert Zubek of SomaSim. These industry professionals critiqued the game pitches while asking questions and offering suggestions to the teams.
Seven teams presented their games.
The professionals and faculty chose four of the seven games pitched to move forward with production:
- BeatTown
- Castle Decomposition
- Love Surge
- Slime Guy
Student teams will begin production on these four games this semester. They will join with informatic students to finish them this fall and will launch their games in spring 2025.
Each team was made up of two to four students who served as various roles in the projects. Students whose games were not chosen to move forward into development were reassigned to the remaining teams.
Watch the event onlineThe games presented during the event were:
Mech Combat: Reloaded
By students Travon Ternoir, Ian Brower, and Colin Hans
This game is a mech player versus environment (PvE) auto-battler where players use an army of customizable mechs to fight for resources on a warring planet Earth. Players take the role of an up-and-coming commander and can customize their army, strategize, and combat factions.
Slime Guy
By students Jared Kessler, Peter Lim, Matthew Miller, and Jason Williams
In this roguelike dungeon-crawler, a seemingly weak slime named Puddles explores dungeons using various slime-based abilities. Players can choose from different perks and evolutions as they traverse three dungeons to defeat an evil army.
Love Surge
By students Abbey Gorny, T Gibson, and Jalen Slutzky
This dating simulator game transforms household appliances into personified avatars through a mysterious app, allowing players to interact and build relationships with technology. Tasks revolve around balancing a busy college life with both real-life and digital relationships over a semester.
The Daily Evasion
By students Daniel Gramling, Tre’Vell Porter, and Brandon Sheley
In this hidden object puzzle game, a guardian angel tries to solve the death of humans in the city. The angel uses premonitions to uncover how a death happens and help prevent it. The goal of the game is to gain favor through solving deaths and eventually become an archangel.
Castle Decomposition
By students Aiden Pedroncelli, Dominic Bennett, Meghan Disko, and Michael Betar IV
This horror game focuses on Detective Gareth Zeal’s search for his brother Gawain as it leads him to a cursed castle. Zeal must find VHS tapes explaining how to break the curse of the castle while fending off enemies called the “Rot” with only lanterns as his tools.
BeatTown
By students Luke Pollin and Spencer Burdon
In this tactics-based wrestling game, players are summoned to BeatTown by the god of wrestling to help rebuild the town and restore its faith in wrestling. The player must wrestle villagers and learn their stories, earn new buildings and costumes, and put on a good show.
Meow Meow Barista
By Elayne Mason, Arabella Loveridge, and Edison Li
This narrative-driven, coffee-making game features a cat named Pumpkin as he looks over his sick owner’s cafe. After wishing upon a shooting star, he gains the ability to make food but must navigate his lack of human language while serving cafe customers.