Games at MängudeÖÖ 2022

On the 17th of September our students showed their games and projects at the popular Estonian gaming event MängudeÖÖ. Compared to our previous expo visit to Comic Con Baltics, our booth in MängudeÖÖ was three times larger. This allowed us also to showcase our current virtual reality (VR) projects, one of which had multiplayer. Overall there were a lot of Estonian gaming fans who visited our area to learn about studying game design and development and see what the students in our university have built.

Cup Half Full

Tetris is one of the most famous games in the world. It has a very simple concept of moving blocks on a grid to fill rows. But what happens if you take the grid out of the equation? This is exactly what is happening in Cup Half Full. You need to fill the rows by moving individual blocks around using your mouse or finger. The feature that the blocks do not lock in place might seem like a boon at first, but it very quickly becomes a thoroughly addicting chaotic mess. This game was made during the UT Mängujämm 2022 game jam, which was dedicated to high school students and beginner level game developers. It goes to show that you do not need to have years of experience to make a simple, but still quite addicitve and an extremely fun game.

Volantibus | Delivery Mayhem

The whole team from Volantibus was present and very well prepared. Their game Delivery Mayhem is a perfect example of some couch gaming fun. The game is about being the fastest (or the most destructive) package courier in a top-down city. Volantibus had just finished implementing four-player split-screen multiplayer for it, and MängudeÖÖ was its first public test run. Everyone could compete against their friends in delivering packages.

SpaceshipVR

SpaceshipVR is a very unique VR project. It has been developed for several years by Kertu Toompea and other students with the purpose of making a relaxing game-like experience. In the experience, the player has no competition or stress to achieve something. Rather they fly around in alien landscapes just discovering and relaxing. There were two versions of this project available, one was built with Unity and another with Unreal Engine. The former also featured procedurally generated alien landscapes. The games ran on both Oculus Quest 2 and Oculus Rift headsets.

DeltaVR

We also brought our current biggest VR project to show. DeltaVR has been developed for several years by different students. It features a virtual version of our Delta building to discover and explore. The newest addition to this project is also the cross-platform multiplayer support. In MängudeÖÖ, we had three Oculus Quest 2-s and one PC available. Everyone visiting the virtual Delta from these devices saw and interacted with each other in the virtual world.