Finalist: Excellence in Narrative Award, Excellence in Visual Art Award
University: New York University
Description: AfterLife Tea House is a tea-making game with a relatively light and relaxing narrative -- and set in a teahouse between life and death. As you begin, you find yourself sitting across from the ghost of your tea sensei, the owner of the AfterLife Tea House whose time is running out. Now, he looks for a successor to take his place before moving on to the next life, and it's up to you to prove yourself and placate the other spirits that find their way to the table.
Winner: Biggest Dreamer Award
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!
Finalist: Impact Award
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Bang for Your Buck is a fantasy gacha game in which your summons are the personifications of present-day corporations -- and their powers are tied to the strength of their followers' devotion in the form of real-world stock prices. During combat, team composition drastically impacts each player's strategy through a buff-debuff system of tags; after all, corporations don't always play nicely with each other! Meanwhile, each time the game loads, real-time stock data is pulled from the internet to modify each character's abilities. Be prepared to adapt and swap in new summons to account for their rising and falling stats!
Finalist: Technical Excellence Award, Impact Award
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: On Planet X, brown bears and polar bears lived peacefully -- until the sun began to melt their land! Unable to escape their fate, they were left to drown. Fortunately, you and your bear friends, the Astrobears (AKA The Bear Rescue Force), concoct a plan to save your kind. Control your Astrobears and gather materials to recruit your kin and expand your crew!
Finalist: Analog Game Design Award, Experimental Award
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: The First Consortium for Biological Entertainment has convened. Directive Number One: Create a suitable replacement for Homo sapiens. Take on the role of a bored AI and bicker with three to five other players to design a sentient species for your own amusement!
Winner: Impact Award
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!
Finalist: Excellence in Narrative Award, Experimental Award
University: New York University
Description: In this narrative-focused, first-person action game, you play as Brette, a delivery worker with the ability to teleport. All you want is to save enough money to buy a ticket to a local rock music festival... At least, until you learn of plans to assassinate the frontman of your favorite band during it!
Winner: Analog Game Design Award
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.
Finalist: Excellence in Design Award
University: Rochester Institute of Technology
Description: Cave Crawler is a 2D mining adventure game in which the player explores uncharted depths and collects resources using a drill. Use those resources to upgrade your equipment and buy new and exciting items that will propel you further into the unknown!
Winner: Experimental Award
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.
Finalist: Excellence in Audio Award, Technical Excellence Award
University: New York University
Description: Half Billion Knots is a space-sailing game in which you pilot a deep-space probe that behaves like a sailboat. Upon discovering and entering an intriguing black hole, you find the vestiges of civilizations, satellites, and even other probes guided by explorers like yourself. It's your job now to document as much information as you can find.
Finalist: Excellence in Design Award
Description: Holder of Place is an auto-battler card game: Build and improve your roster while fighting ever stronger enemies! Dive into a surrealistic dark future in which the distant children of humanity must fight for survival!
Finalist: Analog Game Design Award
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Take on the role of shapeshifters juggling their personal needs with the constant threat of being discovered in this card-based story game for three to five players! Created as part of Maps, Designs, and Atlases to Survive Everyday Life, a collection of fourteen games for interpersonal discovery.
Finalist: Analog Game Design Award
University: New York University
Description: KILN is a competitive boardgame for two players about a pottery class -- race to get your pieces into the kiln before your rival!
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Last Line of Defense is multiplayer couch co-op game for two to four players. Together you'll play as a ragtag crew trying to prevent the end of the galaxy from impending apocalypse!
Finalist: Grand Prize Award
University: New York University
Description: How do the words "dog" and "cat" relate to each other? What about "guitar" and "melody?" Letter Lattice is an appreciation for the intertwining nature of words in the English language -- it takes the best parts of anagram- and crossword-style games and combines them into challenging, word-weaving madness!
Finalist: Excellence in Narrative Award
University: New York University
Description: Limited Impression About Rebecca is a detective game about finding your own truth by collecting rumors and gossip. You'll play as a detective-writer looking to write a book about a young girl named Rebecca -- now, it's up to you to uncover the truth about her boyfriend's suspected involvement in her death two years ago!
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Malika is a game about throwing things! Play as a girl with telekinetic powers in this 2D pixel art-style platformer.
Winner: Technical Excellence Award
Finalist: Grand Prize Award
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: Excellence in Visual Art Award
Finalist: Excellence in Design Award
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.
Finalist: Impact Award
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: Buy, sell, enchant, and forge your way through life in this tale of two siblings, one in which every decision you make changes the delicate balance of their life on a wire!
Play as siblings Ari and Ferris Kinzo as they craft and enchant items to keep the family blacksmith business afloat. Keep in mind, though, that not all is as it seems. Each character must navigate a series of interpersonal conflicts and biases, and together they must decide if they can sustain the forge -- and perhaps even reestablish the relationship they lost!
Finalist: Experimental Award
University: New York University
Description: Quick Character Creator is the easiest character creator! Faster than any others!! Create a character just by answering yes-or-no questions!!!
Finalist: Biggest Dreamer Award
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: A typical turn-based role-playing game that morphs into an idle experience as the player makes progress.
Finalist: Biggest Dreamer Award
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: A top-down rogue-lite in which thievery is the name of the game. You'll be the one to decide your own value here in hell...
Finalist: Biggest Dreamer Award
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: In SwingSpell, you'll play as an apprentice wizard training under the oft-scatterbrained Master Wyman -- but one day you return to the tower and find that he's turned himself into a teapot! As his apprentice, he gives you his magic wand and sends you on a quest to help him change back to normal. Jump, swing, and dash around as you collect the three missing artifacts to bring the magic back and reverse the spell!
Winner: Excellence in Audio Award
Finalist: Excellence in Visual Art Award
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: Excellence in Narrative Award
Finalist: Grand Prize Award
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.
Finalist: Technical Excellence Award
University: Rochester Institute of Technology
Description: The Shattering Swords is a third-person action game centered around a real-time weapon-switching combat system. In it, you'll play as a reluctant hero who takes up a magical, shape-changing sword to defend your village from a horde of living gem constructs. Slash, roll, and parry your way through combat encounters and gather new gemstones to master your weapon's three forms: the balanced Topaz, the heavy Ruby, and the swift Sapphire.
Winner: Excellence in Design Award
Finalist: Excellence in Audio Award
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: Grand Prize Award
Finalist: Excellence in Audio Award, Excellence in Visual Art Award
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.
University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Description: White Light is a walking simulator about the developer's near-death experience and the physical and emotional trauma it caused.