Our annual Computer Graphics EXPO this year was the biggest one yet. Fifteen companies participated to showcase their latest work, introduce themselves to students, exchange game development tricks, and network. The companies occupied the Entertainment Avenue, Education Street, and VR Alley areas of the expo. This time we had two full rooms of student projects – Student Districts A and B – which housed over twenty-two best student works. The conference part lasted all day and had eleven professional talks by participants.

Student District A included projects from our Computer Graphics Project course. Those were AR Subtitles, Signinsonni, Ink & Echoes, and Untitled MIDI Project. There was also Magnetroid – an ongoing bachelor’s thesis project. The other half of the room was shared between students working on our larger projects Reflexions and Blastronaut.

Student District B had the top projects from our Computer Graphics course and Computer Game Development and Design course. From the former, there were projects Procedural Animation, 2D Fluid Simulation, Tree Cellular Automata, and Audio Visualizer. From the game development course, there were Apotheria: Herbs & Elixirs, Asteroids Quest, Beachcomb, and DinoCave. On top of those, there was an ongoing bachelor’s thesis Grand Strategy Map Tool, and an ongoing master’s thesis Townfall.

In the hallway in front of the Student Districts, students showed our lab’s ongoing project DeltaVR.

The Entertainment Avenue started with a showcase from LVLup! Video Game Museum. Among other cool things, they brought their Micro Game Factory, where you can just draw a game level on a piece of paper, and it is instantly turned into a full working video game! Next came Sparkup Tartu Science Park who offer many interesting funding opportunities for rising video game studios. Then there was a Game in Tartu booth. They are organizing an event with the same name later this year.

The other side of the Entertainment Avenue was filled with many game studios. The Morsakabi studio is founded and ran by our alumni. At the moment they are in the process of bringing their quite popular mobile games also to PC. Next came Korter 1996 – the Best Estonian Game of 2025. Their cool pixel-art style conveyes the retro experience of living in an apartment in the post-Soviet country mixed with some cosmic horror. The theme of cosmic horror continued with the next game – Awaken. Recently released on Steam, this game from our alumni takes the player into a strange forest to search for their lost sister. Next to them was Circle Empires 2. The Circle Empires games are all about real-time strategy on circular islands. The islands have different resources, enemies, and open up as the game progresses. The final game in the Entertainment Avenue was the extremely fun party game Grannies on Wheels. In this game you and three of your friends (or computer-controlled characters) smash into each other with your small cars carrying buckets of jam and driven by grannies!

After going through the Entertainment Avenue, the visitors reached Education Street. There the Tallinn University’s Digital Learning Games (DLG) and Tartu Art School introduced their study opportunities. DLG is a master’s programme where one can really get to know the psychology of gamers and take their game design skills to the next level. Tartu Art School is offering different curricula for young people to learn and make beautiful video game art, including 3D!

Most spacious was the VR Alley. There the Estonian Virtual and Augmented Reality Association (EEVR) showed the latest projects of their member organizations and introduced to the visitors the different opportunities for working with VR in Estonia. Next to them was MaruVR with their magnum opus Bootstrap Island. In this game, the main character has to survive on a deadly tropical island and discover the story of how they got there. This game was the Best Estonian Game of 2024. Continuing in the VR Alley there was Blueray who promoted their latest educational project The Dawn of (R)evolution, which takes you on a journey of mankind through the different ages. Next to them, from our neighboring country of Finland , was the Helsinki XR Center showcasing the different projects and activities they are a part of, including a virtual reality game, where you get to experience what it is like to be a dentist. Last, but definitely not least, was VReken. If the visitor ended up in the far corner of VR Alley and put on the VReken headset, they, with full-body tracking, ended up in a melee combat with bands of enemies and high-paced action!

The Conference section lasted the entire event and included a wide assortment of topics. The sessions were started by a panel-talk from our study lab’s founders Madis Vasser, Raimond Tunnel, and Ats Kurvet. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the CGVR Study Lab and that talk looked back to the last decade. The Tallinn University talk explained more about their DLG master’s programme. Then Tartu Science Park explained if finding investors for a video game project is a good idea. The Korter 1996 author explained how she designed and developed her game. Blueray delved into the design and development of their The Dawn of (R)evolution project.

Helsinki XR Center elaborated on their recent research projects. The Circle Empires developer – Luminous OÜ – focused on what they had learned in the past 9 years regarding their game’s graphics. The Game in Tartu people promoted their upcoming event. The Grannies on Wheels developer discussed their experience of switching from solo development to working in a team. The conference ended with a technical talk by Ats Kurvet about how to optimize Unreal Engine projects using the latest top technologies the engine provides.

It was amazing seeing so many of you curious about game development, playing the games, listening to conferences, meeting the companies, and checking out our student projects!

Thank you everyone who participated and attended our expo! Let’s meet again next year!