My Experience in LevelUp

On April 3^rd 2013, the Design Exchange in Toronto hosted the annual Level Up, which showcased a wide variety of games through the day. There were some interesting games ranging from the retro 2D, top down shooters, to the 3D exploration games.

My group went to showcase our game, Bullet Devil, a top shooter that uses 3D models. It was a generic top down shooter, with a few power ups, and unique enemy AI.

There were many games that were showcased there, but the ones I would like to mention first were created by the UofT/OCAD combination. The games that stood out to me the most was, the 3D horror/exploration game called Dollhouse and the puzzle game, Luminance. Although these games didn’t require as much programming or logical thinking than the games made by UOIT (since they all used Unity), they did have an interesting game concept.

The game, Dollhouse really used the “mood” to play with the user’s mind. It followed the concept of collecting tape recorders which was similar to Slenderman where in that game you collected notes. What was different though was the fact that as the player, you could not see who was chasing you since the antagonist was your inner conscious. As the player you couldn’t see the inner conscious but you can look from the point of view from your inner conscious, so you would use this to track where your inner conscious would be located at. Eventually your inner conscious would catch up to you and you would be dead, but with the use of a new, unseen, immortal enemy with the dark music and abandon building, it creates a great atmosphere for the Horror/Exploration genre.

The second game that really stood out to me was the game Luminance. This game used the combination of a tricky puzzle game and the concept of light specifically the light rays. You play as a shadow and your goal is to reach the end of the level. The only problem is you can only move where there is light. To advance you must use the lamps around you to change the direction of light so you can create a pathway to advance forward. Large pillars and high points in elevation could form shadows that would block your path.

These 2 games both won an award and I could see why. They both had interesting an interesting concept and it worked for them. The game was a fun game with a unique design. Congratulations to these two teams as they deserve the award.