Interactive Media Symposium Exhibitors
Project Exhibits
These exhibitors will be showcasing a variety of projects during the Interactive Media Symposium - from immersive PC games to exciting analog board games and explorations of AI, you'll be able to get a little bit of everything.
Arc: The Experience
Created by: Leah Healy, Sebastian Arroyo, Presley Smith, Mithali Bajore, Lasya Josyula
Step into a tunnel of surreal graphics and animals from different biomes. As you move through the space, simple hand gestures create the environment around you. By putting on 3D glasses, you’ll uncover hidden layers within the visuals and experience the environment from a new perspective.
Artio: An Interactive Garden
Created by: Mars Cazer, Ivan Ochoa, Jessica Reminder, Dessa Shapiro, Olivia Gauthier, Laila Porter
Artio is a living plant wall that reacts to you. Step close and watch waves of light race through the plants as they react to your movements. Reach out, experiment, and see what happens; each gesture sparks a new response. Artio invites you to step in and discover what happens when nature and technology start responding to you.
Babtie Games Presents: The Flowershop; Business is Bloomin'!
Created by: Abby Rochelle, Katie Yates, Bella Miller
What started as a 24-hour hackathon submission has now blossomed into a working demo of our original concept, “The Flowershop: Business is Bloomin’!” Three classmates, turned roommates, turned development partners have come together to create a beautiful, narrative-focused game in which players adjust to their new life as the owner of Little Berrybrook’s flower shop and learn more about their new neighbors. Join us during the symposium to experience our demo and learn more about our team and our game design process!
Bad Ideas Productions
Created by: Mary Haley, Jonny RaZeR
Bad Ideas Productions will be showcasing our catalogue of released and upcoming games including The Salesman, LIMP KNIGHT, and Mushroom Kid's Big Grass Sword.
Bad Ideas Productions is an indie studio founded by Jonny RaZeR that is focused on developing memorable and unconventional games and experiences that challenge expectations. The studio is run almost exclusively by current RIT students or RIT Alumni.
Changeling VR
Created by: Elouise Oyzon, Cameron Adams, Brennan Gallatin, Rose Silletto
ChangelingVR is a virtual reality first-person interactive mystery. Enter the thoughts of each one you touch: A different memory, a different world, a different story.
Comically Large
Created by: Hailey Moore, Mary Clements, Emily Menna, Sadie Holland, Lydia Jin, Yuri Korolev, Jacob Jablon, Jayson Packer
One prompt. Two players. Six-foot tall pencils.
Work together to bring a single image to life, but there's a catch. You've each got one half of the canvas and a pencil bigger than you are. Coordinate, communicate, and somehow make it connect in the middle.
The result? A pocket-sized printout of your shared masterpiece.
Oversized tools. Undersized keepsake. Completely worth it.
Critter's Cauldron
Created by: Samantha Osborne, Gabriel Roddy, Leah Torregiano, Jinna Smail, Hannah Clapp
The witch has stepped away, but potions keep being ordered! You and your critter friends must prep ingredients, create potions, and complete orders, all while learning the recipes! Can you manage to uphold the shop's reputation while handling the chaos?
Cursebreakers
Created by: Sofia Rivas, Stevie Meyer, Sebastian Bolatto, Lorenzo Boccio, Elad Flaishon
Cursebreakers is a first-person multiplayer horror game where an organization tasks you and your friends to exorcise The Manor and break the curse before it seeps out into the rest of the world. Navigate through the twisting halls of The Manor, collect items, and overcome challenges to dispel the curse that has possessed one of your friends. Can you prevent the end of the world?
Don't Run With Scissors
Created by: Rose Silletto, Ethan Schechter, Gaby Douzet, Jessica Hall, Elizabeth Sanabria
Don’t Run With Scissors invites you into the mind of a curious kid left home alone with only one instruction: don’t do the things you know you shouldn’t. Naturally, this becomes your to-do list. With an oversized scissor controller that opens, closes, and twists in your hands, you race the clock to slice through everyday objects, rack up points, and leave a trail of destruction on your way up the leaderboard.
Dreamscape Photobooth
An interactive playground for all ages, Dreamscape invites friends and families to jump in and make something together. Using a live camera and our custom-built remix table, you can layer bold filters, play with color, adjust scale, and experiment in real time, then print your one-of-a-kind photo as a keepsake.
Ember's Oath
Created by: Kevin McNulty, Jonathan Benz, Hritish Duvvur, Maya McDaniel, Ayushi Parikh
Play as Ember, a fire mage with the rare ability to transform herself into a phoenix in this action adventure game.
In a world where mages are being hunted to extinction, a tyrant now rules with an army of mechanical beasts, determined to erase magic forever. To fight back, you’ll need to master the synergy between spells and phoenix power, to end his reign and bring a new era of magic back into the world.
Emission Impossible
Created by: Kaiden Lakheeram
In this game, you play as a city mayor who is tasked with constructing a city for your fellow citizens. Using the gold you gain over time, you must construct a variety of buildings for your citizens to live in and enjoy. Be careful though, because you need to keep your greenhouse gas emissions low enough to prevent the destruction of your land and community! Can you keep your citizens happy without negatively impacting the environment?
ENTROPY
Created by: Adam Gayheart, Noah Kasper, Tobin Pedersen, Joel Pho
ENTROPY is a zero gravity cosmic stalker horror game in which the player must navigate through their deteriorating spaceship to make vital repairs, all while avoiding the looming threat of an otherworldly being lurking in the shadows.
Figura - 3D Character Creation and Posing Software for Artists
Created by: Audrey Fuller
Create your own character in this interactive demo of Figura, an open-source 3D character creator and posing tool! Participants can experiment with a variety of character models and art styles, customizing features such as body proportions, facial features, and poses using an intuitive slider-based interface.
Designed to be accessible to artists and beginners alike, the tool demonstrates how modern character creation systems allow users to quickly build expressive digital characters without requiring extensive 3D modeling experience.
During the session, attendees can design and pose their own characters within the environment. At the end of the event, all participant-created characters will be placed together in a shared scene, showcasing the wide range of styles and personalities created during the demo.
Floss Boss
Created by: Maya Probeck, Kashaf Ahmed, Christine Espeleta, Danielle Antonacci, Dayne Stein, Irene Tu, Melodie Wang, Nemesis Velazquez, Noa Spanier
In Floss Boss, users become a tiny shrimp hero scrubbing and flossing a lake monster’s massive teeth! Using an oversized toothbrush and flosser, players brush and floss teeth to attack bacteria in real time, creating a playful, full-body, high-energy experience.
Hellscape Hustle
Welcome, sinners, to the degenerate wastelands of Sin City, where all your greatest fantasies are fulfilled! Our strong and sexy ruler Lucifer, the most powerful demon in the realm, has disappeared. Now it’s your chance to take over his most prized casino, the Hellscape Hustle. Join the competition as one of the Seven Deadly Sins and abuse your role by increasing your power and growing your territory. Be warned, Eden Enforcers watch your every move, but there's always a way to get one step ahead. Sin City needs a hotter, sexier, and better leader, and that might just be you. The sinner who either owns enough territory or strikes a deal with the Eden Enforcers will be the ultimate winner.
Index 1391
Created by: Vincent Le, Frankie Alfano III, Esther Loo, William Tallarico, Tamanna Taneja, Ryan Zhang
In Sanctum Protocol, The Virus has infected your faith. As a machine priest, take calculated risks to navigate the sanctum’s network, wield verses in battle, and lock in rule-altering Doctrines. How far are you willing to bend the rules to restore order?
InterLinked
InterLinked is a 3D first-person action game where you serve your divine master, PSYCHE. A wide-scale infection has ravaged its systems, and you have been sent forth to dispose of the threat. With your innate abilities, travel through the wires and systems of the Divine Apparatus to protect your god from outside threats.
Lanternbearer Game Demo
Created by: Leah Crain, Wyatt Baker, Aizlynn Harkleroad
Lanternbearer is a 2D precision platformer where everything is exactly as it appears. In this world, light alone has the power to make things physical, with only lit objects taking up space. To succeed, you must use your lantern to manipulate your environment, hone your platforming skills, and return light to the world.
While Lanternbearer is currently in development, you can play the demo version of our first area now.
Monster Tea Time
Created by: Mary Haley, Aaron Bush, Annalee Dorozynski, Ashank Rajendran, Luke Justice, Matt Izzo
Befriend Cranky Monsters by Brewing Tea from Gathered Resources on a Magical Island. After getting stranded on a magical island filled with cranky monsters, you must now learn to coexist and befriend them through the power of tea.
Key Features Include:
- Catch a Variety of Fish and Bugs as You Explore the Monster Isles
- Craft Peculiar Drinks Using the Island's Resources
- Befriend Unique Monsters and Learn About Their Past
- Upgrade and Customize Your Character
- Play With Friends and Trade Ingredients
MythBorn
Created by: Aeris Peng
MythBorn is an interactive, quiz-based game where 4 players work together to escape the clutches of an evil wizard. Players will go through scenarios which take place inside an enchanted forest setting. Secretly among them is a traitor working for the wizard whose goal is to make the group fail.
One Man's Trash - A Thrifting Board Game
Created by: Logan Roberts, Aurora Wolf, Morgan Meys, Sarah Zhao
Play an in-development thrift shopping themed board game. Collect and sell vintage clothing, show off your style, and grow your clothing empire.
Patchwork
Created by: Reva Sathe, Tucker Knapman, Kaitlyn Kavanagh, Jackson Heim, Finn Marable, Michelle Arevalo
Step into Patchwork, a fast-paced cooperative experience where you and a partner work together to bring a monster to life. Using physical cable controllers and a set of four themed health podiums, you’ll complete hands-on challenges to build the strongest creature possible. Once your tasks are finished, stand back and watch your unique creation awaken in real time.
This exhibit is an alt.ctrl.GDC 2026 Finalist!
Peaceland: Choose Your Memory
Created by: Marcia Hartwell, Billy Guzik, Bella Miller, Ray Chopade, Shemar Glasgo, Ana Galic, Alyssa Ebert, Leah Leupold, Zosia Rosler, Victoria (Tori) Wong, Carrie Stone, Athena Ching, Alex Guan, Evan Fankhauser, Ricky Yu
“Peaceland: Choose Your Memory” is a narrative heavy visual novel game set in a fictionalized country recovering from a conflict 20 to 30 years earlier. Entering a museum, the player discovers other experiences of the conflict by playing through a series of memories. Each memory invites the player to gain insight into what happened in the past. These decisions will determine how the characters and places inside the memories will be seen in the present. In Peaceland, no one can change history, but how it is interpreted impacts the country's future. A significant event will occur at the end of the game. The outcomes from this event will link players’ choices to scaled-up trajectories that show a society headed toward sustainable peace or a return to conflict. The player will see how their seemingly small choices' intended and unintended consequences can affect them and their country’s future.
Pelican Post
Created by: Jeremy Kotz, Ricard Halvorson, Joana Leong, Connor Petrei
Pelican Post is a cozy narrative game about delivering mail to a town of unique characters and helping to regain a lost sense of community. You play as Pepper, a young pelican who recently moved to Port Pleasant to take a job as the town's mailman. Through your job, you'll get to interact with and get to know the townsfolk and help them out. "Small acts of kindness" is pretty much in the job description. Visitors of this exhibit will have the opportunity to explore a playable game demo of Pelican Post and chat with the game's developers.
Potted Pets
Potted Pets is a cozy, low-stakes, semi-idle farming simulator, where players take care of their own adorable cast of living plant pots. Players will spend their time cultivating their garden while simultaneously growing a personal relationship with their collection of little guys. Your pots will waddle around, express themselves, ask for water, and be living and breathing in the environment you create for them. By helping your pots grow and thrive, your garden expands and grows too! Players can plant all sorts of seeds in their “Potted Pets,” increasing their profits, helping them spread their garden further. Through personal connection and a satisfying game loop, Potted Pets delivers a relaxing, customizable experience to brighten up your busy day!
Rend(er)less Possibilities
Created by: Johnny Fagerlin
Spread throughout several different projects see the power of incorporating GPU render work into your average simulation or game. Between animations, super realism ray tracing or physical texturing the possibilities of rendering are endless! These projects are less focused on games and rather on the core ideas of computer graphics programming and their incorporation into render engines potentially for games, simulations or even animated films.
Sheep Protector
Created by: Nao Belgrave, Milo Qureshi, Cameron Wilson, Eoin Stansfield, Logan Brown
We will present our finished game, currently named "Sheep Protector", as the focus of our digital exhibit. Sheep Protector is a short environmental adventure game wherein the player, who acts as a sheepdog, must herd a singular sheep through a treacherous forest and return to the rest of the herd. Along the way, the player must avoid or confront environmental dangers, such as obstructions in the path and wild animals, to safely usher the sheep through the forest.
Something About Fish
Created by: Ryan Doyle, Brady Campbell, Robinson Ruddock, Logan Salazar, Ben Leber
A four-player card game where players compete to collect as many fish as possible!
Make big, interactive plays using the few resources you have available. However, every option requires you to discard another option. The first player to collect 5 fish wins!
Space Raccoons : Raccoons in Space
Created by: William Tallarico, Brandon Korn, William Buxton
Space Raccoons is a chaotic, competitive card game where players take turns digging through piles of cards, called the Trash Heap, in search of valuable junk. As you rummage, you’ll shuffle cards around, uncovering new finds while burying others out of sight.
Each card serves a dual purpose: stash it for points to score later, or play it for an immediate effect to gain an edge. But beware! Every card you play gets tossed back into the heap, where anyone can find it again.
It takes a clever, quick, and unapologetically greedy raccoon to claw their way to the top and become the Ultimate Space Raccoon!
Spell Code SlingerZ
Created by: Max White, Billy Guzik, Patrick Emmons, Jayesh Singh, Oscar Tiong
The year is 2000… Y2K has caused the source code of the universe to be leaked, allowing humans to bend reality using spell-like coding techniques called “Spell-Codes”.
Those who have harnessed the power of spell-codes now compete to obtain the ultimate power: the “Universal Motherboard” which allows the user to control everything in the universe.
Weave codes and sling spells as a punk Y2K spell-code synthesizer in this 2-4 player, couch/online, 2D party brawler. Acquire new exe & config spells to add to your arsenal and create your own unique playstyles.
TETHERPUNK
Created by: Xander Goodwin, Jaden Pickering
Come play a former student project that has been transformed into a multi-year long production!
TETHERPUNK is a 2D ACTION-PHYSICS-SANDBOX game! Scavenge space junk to kitbash your spaceship, move fast, break things, and take down technofeudalist bosses.
The Crimson Cup
Created by: Alessia Bianchimano, Lev Gluzdov, Amanda Duffy
In the game, The Crimson Cup, players step into the role of a barista taking customer orders during a typical shift, except some customers may not be human. Through dialogue choices and environmental clues, players must determine who, or what, they're actually serving. Identifying each customer's true nature is important, as non-human entities require special syrups, so if you fail to identify them...there may be deadly consequences.
TWINBALL
Created by: Willow Frank, Raina Pereira, Metra Pullara, Jacob Cristo
Twinball is an anime-inspired Pinball Boss Rush Game. Fight your way through Spin City as the Jackpot Twins in Pinball Combat!
Unholy Roller Game Showcase
Created by: Ramon Miland, David Morse, Joshua Ward, Jeff Goehring
Come play Unholy Roller, a bowling-inspired dungeon crawler where you play as the weapon. Hammer through a pyramid of sentient pins to build huge scores and massive combos!
What Do You Mean by “Fake”? An Interactive Exploration of Synthetic Media
Created by: Saniat Sohrawardi, Kelly Wu, Ishmam Bin Rofi, Palavi Vinod Bhole, Bryce Gernon
AI-generated content is now a constant in our news feeds and conversations. While we use many terms to describe this media, their definitions are far from universal. Do these terms mean what we think they do? Discover how interpretations of synthetic media vary across individuals while competing to be the best at detecting them.
Visitors begin by defining one of several synthetic media-related terms using a microphone or keyboard. Their response is transcribed in real time and added to a growing collection of definitions from other participants and sources.
Next, visitors play a short game called “Is This Real?”, where they determine whether images or videos are authentic or AI-generated and compare their scores on a leaderboard.
Finally, visitors see a definition from another participant and discover which “media persona” their definition most closely resembles, highlighting the many ways people understand synthetic media.
Community Presenters
These presenters will join the Symposium in the Community Presentation Room, sharing their knowledge and specialties with attendees on a wide range of topics.
Agile Manifesto at Play: Lessons Learned from Student Game Design Teams
11:00 - 11:30AM
Hosted by: William Tallarico, Max White
This talk reports on a recent research project that investigated which Agile values student teams consider most important and how those values are practiced within team project environments. We gathered qualitative data to examine patterns of prioritization, and the mechanisms through which teams translate values into their team dynamics. We also explored how these practices foster mutual investment among team members.
The talk will provide an overview of the study’s background and motivation, research design, data collection methods, and analytical framework. It also will discuss the takeaways and future work derived from the data analysis.
Vertex, Pixel & Beyond. What Even is a Shader?
11:35 - 12:05PM
Hosted by: Chris Cascioli
Shaders, the tiny GPU programs that transform vertices and color pixels, are an integral component of hardware-accelerated rendering. While basic rendering only requires vertex shaders and pixel shaders, a variety of new shader types have been introduced over the last 20 years. Some have allowed new rendering tasks to be moved to the GPU, while others have largely been abandoned due to poor performance. This talk explores the major shader types supported by modern graphics APIs, discussing what shaders are, how they're used for rendering and which ones are worth your (frame) time.
echoes VIP Student Microtalks
12:10 - 12:40PM
Hosted by: Erika Mesh and students
Hear from a variety of students about their work, experiences, and lessons learned as members of a Vertically Integrated Project team at RIT. These microtalks will be targeted at anyone interested in VIPs and/or the reflections of students working in large, long-term interactive media projects. Topics will range from personal reflections to technical details of specific features.
The Trials, Tribulations, and Quirks of Using a Typewriter in the Modern Age
12:45 - 1:15PM
Hosted by: Leor Alfia
If you're getting fed up with the ubiquity of AI writing in today's world, why not come by and experience writing and the creative process as it was meant to be; Really annoying, time- consuming, and insanely rewarding. Come see a typewriter (and, by extension, somebody who knows way too much about it!) and experience what it was like to really imprint ideas and words to paper.
Publishing with RIT's MAGIC Spell Studios
1:20 - 1:50PM
Hosted by: Dennis McCorry
MAGIC Spell Studios is RIT's "publisher of record" for all things digital media, including games and apps.
Publishing is much more than simply "clicking a button". This session is your opportunity to learn more about the process of publishing, how to incorporate the steps required into your production workflows, the benefits of publishing through MAGIC and more.
If you have an interest in or questions about publishing something that you have made, this session is for you!
Makers to Advocates
1:55 - 2:25PM
Hosted by: Laura Gutaman
Why does a $20 plushie cost $800 once it is labeled "medical"? In this session, we expose the "Assistive Tech Gap" a systemic design failure where high costs and "medicalized" markups prevent differently-abled children from simply playing. We believe accessibility should be a right, not a luxury. You will learn to identify the physical barriers built into everyday consumer toys and discover how DIY engineering can democratize inclusive play.
IGME-470 Demo: Making a Pong Paddle Controller in Under 30 Minutes
2:30 - 3:00PM
Hosted by: Nick Buonarota
Have you thought of a cool game idea that doesn’t necessarily map well to a traditional “gamepad” or “mouse and keyboard”? Maybe you’ve played games like Skylanders or Mario Kart Live Circuit and wondered, “Wowie, how did they make that!?”. Taking a class like IGME.470 - Physical Comp & Alt Interfaces can get you one step closer to those realities. In this 30 minute workshop, get a preview of what is possible in IGME 470. By the end of this session we will have created a simple custom “paddle” controller for the classic game of Pong in the Unity game engine. All skill levels are welcome.
Holding it Together - How to keep working on the game you love without going insane
3:05 - 3:35PM
Hosted by: Xander Goodwin
You've become attached to a student project and you think it can be something more. What now?
The development of my game, TETHERPUNK (formerly known as Project Rope Tool) has been fraught with dry spells, teammate departures, and trips back to the drawing board. You cannot sustain a project on sheer passion alone, as much as I'd like to believe it.
Luckily, there are strategies you can employ to make it easier to keep moving when it's hard, and make the most of your excitement when it isn't *as* hard!
In this talk I'll be discussing things that worked, lessons learned, and pitfalls that I plummeted, Wile E. Coyote style, directly into. Come swing by!
Medical Learning via Games: Technical Research
3:40 - 3:55PM
Hosted by: Zellian Dettmer
Medical Learning via Games: Technical Research is the initial phase of a multi-semester development of an interactive skeletal muscular system program. MLG is an interactive visual delivery of the fundamentals of the anatomy and physiology of skeletal muscles. Draw the origin and insertion of the muscles on the bones, observe the muscle form, and interact with the movement of the muscles. Human anatomy and physiology courses are textbook and memorization-heavy courses, but comprehension and memorization come more naturally through interaction and experience than through words on a page. The final implementation of the project aims to support textbook teaching and to act as a tool to assist the learning process. This presentation goes into detail about the progress made thus far and highlights the areas of research and execution.
Feral and Don't Lose Your Head Post Mortem - Learning How to Lead a Project
4:00 - 4:15PM
Hosted by: Santiago Benitez-Fernandez
In the past year, I've begun doing game jams to gain experience in Game Development and have content for my resume. Over that year, I learned a lot about working in with others and how to better lead a multidisciplinary team. In this presentation, I will go over the stories of how the developments for the best and worst experiences I've had working in teams and the different challenges that I faced and the improvements that happened after learning from my mistakes. I'll end with the best methods that I found that worked for me to make a game that ended in the top 50% of almost 1000 games submitted to the same Game Jam.
Creating Effective Video Game Development Audio Asset Pipelines for Student Teams
4:20 - 4:35PM
Hosted by: Max White
Asset pipelines for video game development serve to realize visual assets, audio assets, and much more as easily as possible. They are critical to a project’s long term success as they define standards for how different parts of a project come together to create an experience. However, every team works differently so not every asset pipeline works for every team. This talk looks at asset pipeline examples found in echoes to answer the question of: How can you structure an asset pipeline to best fit your team’s needs?
Agile Practices in Student Teams: Processes and Resources for Emerging Leads and Producers
4:40 - 4:55PM
Hosted by: Sofia Rivas
What do Agile practices actually look like in student game development teams? This talk shares insights from research conducted with teams in RIT’s Game Design and Development Master’s program and the Echoes VIP studio, focused on how students run and experience Sprint Retrospectives.
We’ll explore the adaptation of Agile processes in academic environments and what practices help teams reflect and improve. The talk will highlight lightweight Agile practices that emerging team leads and producers can use to run more effective retrospectives and support healthier development processes in student-led teams.