The NYU Game Center’s 2019 was a busy year filled with many highlights, including moving into a new department, tons of game releases, and a few big award nominations and wins!

New Initiatives and Happenings

  • The NYU Game Center moved! We’re now located in new NYU building located at 370 Jay Street. Our new floor features a larger NYU Game Center Open Library as well as more space for student collaboration and work. Our new building is shared by NYU departments at the intersection of art and technology including ITP/IMA, the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, and the Integrated Digital Media Dept.
  • Robert Yang (Faculty) created a new twitch.tv talk show called Game Center Live, a 2 hour, weekly live streamed show that showcases our students, games, and department through interviews, playthroughs, and news roundups.
  • In 2019 the NYU Game Center was named a Center of Excellence in Digital Game Development by New York State and awarded a $1.6 million dollar matching grant over the next 5 years.
  • The NYU Game Center was awarded a $25,000 grant from the Bigglesworth Family Foundation to support entrepreneurship in games by marginalized game developers.

Awards & Nominations

  • 8 games made by students and alumni were recognized or nominated for IGF (Independent Games Festival) Awards:
    • levedad by Julian Cordero (BFA ’19) – Honorable Mention, Nuovo Award & Finalist, Best Student Game
    • Fortune-499 by AP Thompson (MFA ’15) – Honorable Mention, Excellence in Narrative
    • Circle0 by Dennis Carr, Longxiao Li, Vanilla Liu, Corey Bertelsen, Milan Koerner-Safrata, Jenna Galka (MFA ’18) – Finalist, Nuovo Award
    • Nerve Damage by Dennis Carr (MFA ’18) – Honorable Mention, Nuovo Award
    • We Should Talk by Carol Mertz, Jordan Jones-Brewster, Francesca Carletto-Leon, Kat Aguiar, Nobonita Bhowmik, Jack Schlesinger (MFA ’19) – Honorable Mention, Best Student Game
    • Unavowed by Jennifer Allaway (MFA ’17) & Alexander Bevier (MFA ’16) at Wadjet Eye Games – Honorable Mention, Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Finalist, Excellence in Narrative
    • The Norwood Suite by Cosmo D (Incubator ’16) – Honorable Mention, Nuovo Award
    • HELLCOUCH: A Couch Co-op Game by Carol Mertz and Francesca Carletto-Leon (MFA ’19) – alt.crtl.GDC Award
  • At GDC, HELLCOUCH: A Couch Co-op Game by Carol Mertz and Francesca Carletto-Leon (MFA ’19) was selected for the alt.ctrl exhibition, a selective showcase of games with unconventional controllers.
  • Moncage by Dong Zhou & Yijia Chen (MFAs ’19) won first place for Best Gameplay and third place for Best Visual Quality at the 2019 Intel University Games Showcase at GDC 2019.
  • At the IndieCade Festival 2019, 5 games were selected for the festival, and of the 2 won Festival Awards:
    • Anthology of Intimacy by Allison Kyran Cole (MFA ’17) – Official Selection
    • Hell Couch by Carol Mertz & Francesca Carletto-Leon (MFAs ’19) – Official Selection
    • Kroma by Carol Mertz, Kai Karhu, Francesca Carletto-Leon, & Temitope Olujobi (MFAs ’19) – Official Selection & IndieCade Choice Award Winner
    • Moncage by Dong Zhou & Yijia Chen (MFAs ’19) – Official Selection & Innovation in Experience Design Award Winner
    • Skate & Date by Geneva Heyward (BFA ’22) – Official Selection
  • In addition to the selections and nominees, Brian S. Chung (MFA ’20) was a co-recipient of the annual IndieCade Game Changer Award for his work organizing the annual Game Devs of Color Expo.

Students, Faculty, & Alumni Featured in the Press

Game Releases, Scholarships, and Exciting Student, Alumni, and Faculty Work

  • Dear Reader a game by Local Number 12, which includes Eric Zimmerman (Faculty) and contributions from Alexander King (MFA ’16), Diego Garcia (MFA ’14), Toni Pizza (MFA ’14), and Karina Popp (MFA ’15) was released as one of the launch titles with Apple Arcade.
  • Airplane Mode the thesis game designed by Hosni Auji (MFA ’18) secured a publishing deal with AMC and is going to be released in 2020. With AMC funding, Auji added Ben Constrell (MFA ’18) and Laurenz Riklin (MFA ’18) to the team.
  • Ape Out by Gabe Cuzzillo (BFA ’15), Matt Boch (Faculty), and Bennett Foddy (Faculty) was released in April 2019 by Devolver Digital.
  • Bizarre Barber by Maria Mishurenko (MFA ’19) was a 2019 NYU Game Center Incubator title and won the Oculus Launchpad grant.
  • SUPERMASH was released for PC from Digital Continue who include alumni Ben Poland (MFA ’16), Chris McGinnis (MFA ’16), Jonathan Zungre (MFA ’14), Owen Bell (MFA ’16), and Hang Ruan (MFA ’18).
  • Yuxin Gao (MFA ’20) curated an exhibition for local game collective/gallery Babycastles titled “Year of the Pig” showcasing indie games and developers from China.
  • Red Planet Farming a game about farming on mars by Nina Demirjian, Noah Lee (BFA ’20), Sean Park (BFA ’19), and Sean Porio was the recipient of a 2019 Sloan Grant Award.
  • Geneva Hayward (BFA ’22) and Yiren Wang (MFA ’20) were recipients of the selective Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Foundation Scholarships.
  • Killer Queen Black was released on the Nintendo Switch, PC, and Xbox by BumbleBear Games, a studio team including Josh DeBonies (Adjunct Faculty) and Chris Wallace (MFA ’16).
  • We Should Talk by Carol Mertz, Jordan Jones-Brewster, Francesca Carletto-Leon, Kat Aguiar, Nobonita Bhowmik, Jack Schlesinger (MFA ’19) received a publishing deal with Whitethorn Digital and will have a cross-console launch in 2020.
  • NYU Game Center has partnered with Take-Two Interactive to create a (partial) scholarship for 3 MFA students hoping to work in the AAA industry after graduation. The first three scholarships were awarded in Fall 2019 to Christine Fouron, Stephen Gonzalez and Emi Schaufeld.
  • The Sheep’s Meow, a team that includes Brian S. Chung (MFA ’20) won the 2019 Red Bull Mindgamers Puzzle Design Challenge with their game MOOVING IN and won a trip to Hawaii to meet Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov.