At the heart of GameFest is its Showcase and Competition, an opportunity for participating teams to exhibit their games and earn one (or more!) of a number of awards -- and accompanying monetary prizes. The competition itself is judged each year by a rotating panel of local industry experts, all of whom bring a wealth of experience from across the game development world.
See below for more information about recent winners!
GameFest 2023
Winner: Shroomies
University: City University of New York
Description: Shroomies is a floral-themed bullet hell in which you play as a grumpy mushroom and blast through waves of flowers. Shoot, dodge and survive five difficult waves of furious flora. Can't make it to the end? No worries -- because with every death comes progress! After dying, the next generation will pick up the legacy of the previous ones. Fallen mushrooms are reborn in the form of Shroomies, little helpers that provide auxiliary fire and increase your number of health points. Build up your community with each attempt and give the future generations of shrooms a better fighting chance!
Winner: Nameless
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Nameless is a table-top role-playing game about the process of self-discovery in relation to one's name. It's a representation of the struggles of processing one's gender identity through a more mystical lens -- the fae wilds. This game is about the journey to find yourself, your truest self, but it's also about every beautiful milestone you reach along that journey, the moments of understanding that make you realize you're on the way to being yourself.
Winner: High Zeaz
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: What do you do with an undead sailor? Find out in High Zeaz, a PSX-styled zombie pirate movement shooter with grappling hooks! As a freshly turned zombie, a former prisoner of war, use your trusty Hook Shot and Swing Shot to zip and swing around three expansive levels on a quest to become the greatest pirate who ever died... But beware -- you're not the only affront to nature out on the ocean, so you best be prepared to take down skeletons, ghosts, and a horrifying eldritch boss along the way!
Winner: GODWALKER
University: New York University
Description: In GODWALKER, a return to the classic first-person "boomer shooter" genre, it's been 10,000 years since the Great Evil has been released. The world was torn apart and is now ravaged by otherworldly robotic invaders. From the ashes, techno-wizards built you: The ultimate scrap-bot killing machine imbued with the essence of the Mecha-Gods. But none of this really matters: Eat the GODHEART. Kill the enemy.
Check out the game's website and then download the latest build(s) for free on Github!
Winner: snapshot
University: City University of New York
Description: What does someone look like at their happiest? In snapshot, you'll play as a ghost with no memories and the power to travel through time. Click through the days, months, and years, exploring thirty years worth of memories and remembering a life that once was. Search for your happiest day in this short, hour-long narrative clicker game.
Winner: Safe Space
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Safe Space is a hair-raising exploration-interactive story in which you play as therapist seeking to help a six-year-old child uncover the source of their trauma. To do so, you will travel through the mind of the child and meet key characters from the child's past through their disturbing point of view. The further you progress in the story, the deeper you'll delve into the child's mind.
Winner: The Defense of Trewel Towers
University: Quinnipiac University
Description: In this virtual reality tower defense game, you'll embody the hero of the Orna Kingdom -- and you'll use your archery skills to defend the kingdom from atop an array of towers! Follow the hero's story, gain magical abilities, and upgrade the towers' defenses in order to repel invaders from another world.
Winner: Shortest Fuse
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Featuring three games in one, Shortest Fuse allows you to experience the full story of the Short Fuse Factory! Take the side of the employee tasked with defusing wacky bombs in Short Fuse, the person creating them in Fuse Short, and the one paying the price in Short Fuse: The Short Stick.
Short Fuse: For one reason or another, your employer has a LOT of bombs. And because you signed the paperwork (not that you knew what you were getting into), you need to defuse each and every bomb! Did we mention that these bombs are all about to explode? Don't worry, all you need to do is snip the red wires. Good luck!
Fuse Short: Way back in the time of Short Fuse, there was someone on the other end of the intercom to help you on your way. Well... not really help, but they were there, that's for sure. Now you can finally experience a piece of what's on the other side of the intercom! Play as an average office worker whose only job is to make bombs!
Short Fuse: The Short Stick: There are many facets to the Short Fuse Factory. It's what makes the bomb tick, if you will. In this adventure, it's your job to determine who is crucial to the extended success of the Short Fuse Factory. And if no one is crucial? Well I'm sure an AI can replace them. No problem! Right?
Winner: Here There Be Bears
University: University of Connecticut
Description: Here There Be Bears is an interactive media project that immerses the player in the experience of post-traumatic stress disorder. Here, trauma is the bear, lurking somewhere in the penumbra of the cave, seen only in shadow and heard only in echoes. Set in the dark labyrinth of the mind of the protagonist, Sam, the player, will follow the fragmented memories of the caving accident that left her with residual trauma years later. In the midst of her panic, a mysterious voice, emanating from her phone begins urging her to push through her fear to break free. Even after making it back to reality several times, new triggers and temptations keep her revisiting the shards of traumatic memory.
GameFest 2022
Winner: Vigorus
University: Rochester Institute of Technology
Description: Vigorus is a rhythm-based platformer, a musical adventure into a bizarre world. Playing as a young girl named Vigorus, you'll seek to recover a lost memory and help your frog-puppet companion to save the world from monsters.
Winner: Case Files
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Case Files is a mystery storytelling role-playing game in which players take on the role of investigators or criminals -- or something between the two -- and solve mysteries. Players use their unique specialties to even the odds on rolls and bet points in their specialties to take a risk on rolls, all in the service of finding the answers they need.
Winner: Tempo
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Tempo is a single-player rhythm game that offers an audiovisual arcade experience to test your speed and accuracy. Control Musa, the musical disco note, and travel through various surreal environments and dance across the universe! Speedrun high-intensity levels by mastering the tracks to top the global leaderboards.
Winner: Veni, Vidi, Vici
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: In this rhythm-based role-playing game, you'll play as Delphine, a young woman striving to piece together her memories and unravel the fate of the Arderan people. Engage Tenants of the dungeon in dance battles to rid them of corruption and gain their trust -- and then switch between unlocked tenants on the fly to develop your own mixture of dance styles!
Winner: The Day I Left
University: New York University
Description: A touching visual novel with a simplified art style and without any text. No spoilers -- you'll want to just experience this one for yourself.
Winner: No Small Matter
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Explore the house of a modern wizard! Use your powers to reach every secret chamber, attracting objects together and even stopping them in time. Find the hidden fragments in this strange house or collect them by solving the wizard's puzzles.
Winner: Mirare: The Shattered Self
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Play as Celia in this HD-2.5D adventure and travel across a wondrously dangerous land in search of a way back to reality from a world that reflects fiction. Strategically fight through battles, solve puzzles, and discover the meaning of the power that you’ve been given. What lies beyond the mirror’s mirage?
Winner: Astral Chart
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: In Astral Chart, you'll play as a lone mercenary exploring the vast reaches of empires across multiple solar systems. Left with the responsibility of the Unstoppable Force, a small-but-agile spaceship, you'll pursue dangerous bounties and build an arsenal of weapons capable of taking down foes of all sizes.
Check out the game's website and download it for free from Itch!
Winner: dumpling.love
University: New York University
Description: dumpling.love is a browser-based, 2000s-netart take on Myst, created as a way to experiment with non-hierarchical and playful processes. Players explore a park by clicking still images and moving between locations. You can talk to the various denizens of the forest, interact with pieces of tech-trash that litter the trails, drag a lot of popups around the screen, go on a guided meditation, help two cows in a painting realize their love for one another, and snoop through the development blogs of the design team.
Winner: Boiling Over
University: Rochester Institute of Technology
Description: In Boiling Over, you play as Hazel, a part-time college student saving up for a study-abroad program by working as a barista! As a barista, it's your job to craft delicious beverages for all of the lovely customers who walk into the store. However, some customers are anything but lovely. Some are jerks. How will you deal with your already-strenuous coffee-making job?
Available for free on Itch!