Level Up Showcase exhibit brings student-made video games to the public

Students in Toronto will get to show off their creativity in computer and artistic design Wednesday at the Level Up Student Games Showcase, an exhibition of student-made video games.

The event, now in its sixth year, brings together students from the University of Toronto's computer science program with art and design-minded students at OCAD University to make games that excel at both.

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Emma Westecott, assistant professor at OCAD, told CBC News that the showcase began when she connected with UofT professor Steve Engels.

"We pretty quickly realized that his games had too much programmer art in them, and my students' games were too conceptual," she said. "It just seemed obvious to put our classes together and build this collaborative course between our institutions. And that's how the first Level Up came about."

Students in the collaborative program team up to make games, many of which end up at the Level Up Showcase for the public to play.

The showcase has grown to include games made by students. This year, 11 other schools from Ontario are presenting games alongside UofT and OCAD.

Since its inception, the showcase has produced games that found success beyond the local scene. 2014's winner Runbow is now for sale on the Nintendo Wii U, and its team seeded the founding of their own studio, 13AM Games.

Pitfall Planet an IGF nominee

Last year's winner, Pitfall Planet, is a co-operative game where two players take on the role of astronaut miners searching for gold on a mysterious world. The players must co-operatively navigate the landscape filled with rocky cliffs and lava flows to collect the materials they need.

The game's debut was so well-received that its team continued to work on it for another year to expand the number of levels and features for a full retail version. It's due out on Steam later this month. It was also a finalist for Best Student Game at this year's Independent Games Festival Awards at San Francisco's Games Developers Conference.

For Pitfall Planet developer Adam Robinson-Yu, the showcase makes for a unique motivator for what could otherwise be just another school project. "It's fun working on something with the idea that you're going to show it to a whole bunch of people at the end," he says.

Robinson-Yu and project artist Emma Burkeitt cite games like Toad's Treasure Tracker for the Wii U, Portal 2's co-op mode and 1983 classic Lode Runner as major influences for Pitfall Planet.

For Burkeitt, one of the highlights of seeing their game demoed to the public was seeing the drastically different ways people played the same levels.

"We had some players that were very collaborative and helpful, and some players who were very competitive with their co-op player, which was really fun to watch," she said. Some pairs threw each other over pits to gather hard-to-reach gold, while others tossed their would-be partners into lava pits for laughs.

Toronto fostering new, young talent

Westecott credits the Toronto video game community, which is home to several studios that have won international acclaim, for visiting her students on a regular basis to answer their questions, offer advice and help foster new industry talent. For that reason she's reticent to look at expanding it beyond the GTA.

"I tend to think of the community as an extended classroom," she said. "They're very interested in investing in the next generation of game makers in order to build something that's sustainable."

The Level Up Showcase runs today at The Design Exchange in downtown Toronto.