Level Up

Could you create the next Minecraft, Mario Kart or Dota 2?

ullahnor — Wed, 17 May 2017 12:32:27 +0000

Could you create the next Minecraft, Mario Kart or Dota 2? ullahnor Wed, 05/17/2017 - 08:32

Topic

Global Lens

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Video Games

machine learning

Raquel Urtasun

Geoffrey Hinton

Level Up

Faculty of Arts & Science

If you've just been accepted into one of the world's top-ranked departments of computer science and are looking for something a little different along your way to becoming the next Raquel Urtasun or Brendan Frey, check out the video above.

In the video, Steve Engels – an associate professor, teaching stream in the Faculty of Arts & Science – walks you through his half-semester course where undergraduate students not only learn how to design video games, they also get to watch gaming enthusiasts try them out at the annual Level Up Showcase.

The conference draws recruiters scouting for new talent.

“I came to this event to see the amazing concepts the students came up with,” Martin Labrecque, CEO of Labrecque Labs says. “We're also looking for talent – to see who's driving innovation in the game design and gaming community.”

Ubisoft's Heather Steele echoes the sentiment. “We're a growing game studio at Ubisoft Toronto and we need amazing talent to help us make games.”

More interested in creating a machine to play the game for you? Read about the U of T computer scientists who helped Google DeepMind's AlphaGo win against Fan Hui 5-0.

More interested in playing games than creating them? At the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, a new scholarship is coming in 2018 for a gamer who excels at eSports. U of T alumnus Victor Xin will fund the new scholarship to support an Engineering student with high academic achievement and a passion for electronic sports. The scholarship was recently featured on CBC News.

Not interested in games at all? Maybe you'd rather develop a computer algorithm with the ability to identify speech patterns associated with various types of dementia or use artificial intelligence to solve legal challenges. U of T's department of computer science, considered one of the top ten in the world, is basking in the spotlight these days, getting recognized for producing an amazing pool of stars in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

At a recent conference held at U of T's downtown Toronto campus, the Department of Computer Science Innovation Lab (DCSIL), one of 10 accelerators on campus, said it's been “inundated” with calls from the global entrepreneurship community and getting recognition from Silicon Valley.

Uber recently selected Associate Professor Raquel Urtasun to lead a new research lab in Toronto that focuses on self-driving vehicles. And four years ago, Google hired Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus, referred to as the “godfather” of deep learning. Both are key founders of the recently launched Vector Institute in Toronto, which hopes to promote research and commercialization of AI technologies. Several of Hinton's students have gone on to also become leaders in the field of machine learning.

U of T students bring their A-game to Level Up video game showcase

geoff.vendeville — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 14:33:18 +0000

U of T students bring their A-game to Level Up video game showcase

geoff.vendeville Thu, 04/06/2017 - 10:33

Cutline

Virtual reality games were all the rage at the seventh annual Level Up Showcase in the Design Exchange on Apr. 5, 2017 (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Geoffrey Vendeville

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Geoffrey Vendeville

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Game over

After months of developing video games in collaboration with OCAD U students, U of T computer science undergraduates had the chance to show off their creations and get feedback from industry pros at the Level Up Showcase.

Organizers said about 2,000 people attended the event at the Design Exchange in the Financial District on Wednesday.

Students from 15 universities and colleges demoed the 75 games they made for the showcase (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Steve Engels, an associate professor, teaching stream in U of T's department of computer science, co-founded the event with Emma Westecott, an associate professor in OCAD U's Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, seven years ago.

Taking video games to the next level: U of T’s Steve Engels on this year’s student game design showcase

Students from another U of T class in mobile game development, taught by sessional lecturer Elias Adum, were also on display. Their games were designed with Centennial College students.

Neon Ascension, an arcade game with a Tron-like aesthetic, was developed by U of T's Grace Zhu, Philip Bilodeau, Jeffrey Deng, Catherine Wang and Daniel Son and students from OCAD U.

The goal is to outlast the opposing player on an endless climbing wall. The players rearrange blocks on the wall to stay alive while trying to sabotage their rival.

Matt Crans, an OCAD U student and artist behind Neon Ascension, watches players try out the game (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

See the other standout U of T-OCAD U games at this year's showcase

One aisle over, computer science undergrads unveiled a completely different project: an exploration and puzzle game called Sizis in which players must grow or shrink objects to advance through a fantasy world up in the clouds and collect relics.

Nicole Sultanum, a U of T PhD student and teaching assistant for Steve Engels's class, tries out Sizis. "It's a beautiful game," she said. (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

All evening, judges who work in the video game industry tried out the students' projects, ranked them and provided feedback. In 2015, Pitfall Planet, designed by U of T's Daphne Ippolito, Alexander Biggs and Adam Robinson-Yu, won the award for best overall game.

Judging is serious business (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

But it was not meant to be for U of T teams this year.

The night's big winner was Disco Is Dead by students in Sheridan College's first graduating class of the bachelor's game design program. Players fight off the undead by slapping zombie head-shaped controllers and execute special team moves by high-fiving while holding a disco ball shaped controller.

The game won for best overall, best tech and best art.

Disco Is Dead, a game by Sheridan College students with zombie head controllers, swept the awards at the 2017 Level Up Showcase (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Level Up: what video games will U of T and OCAD U students unveil this year?

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 31 Mar 2017 20:34:44 +0000

Level Up: what video games will U of T and OCAD U students unveil this year?

geoff.vendeville Fri, 03/31/2017 - 16:34

Cutline

Four of the standout games designed by U of T and OCADU students for the Level Up Showcase, a conference of video game designers: top row, Auroras (left), Pickup Artist (right); bottom row, Neon Ascension (left), Sizis (right)

Geoffrey Vendeville

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Geoffrey Vendeville

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Students pair up to design video games for the 7th annual showcase on April 5

Designing the next Angry Birds isn't all fun and games.

“There are a million reasons why a game can fail, compared to the few reasons that make it succeed,” says Steve Engels, an associate professor, teaching stream in the University of Toronto's department of computer science. “Typically, success can only come after encountering and regrouping from failure.”

His students teamed up with OCAD University students to develop games for the Level Up Showcase, a conference for budding programmers from 15 universities and colleges. Now in its seventh year, the showcase attracts over 2,000 guests, including many in the industry who will be rating and critiquing the 75 games on display.

Remember Pitfall Planet? That game was first unveiled at Level Up in 2015. Since U of T began offering the half-semester course in video game design 10 years ago, enrolment has tripled.

Read about last year's showcase in The Toronto Star

Since 2011, the class has been co-taught with Emma Westecott, an assistant professor in OCAD U's Faculty of Design.

“The benefit for the students is that they're put together with people with different literacies and skills, and they get to make something together,” she said. “It's as close as you can get to the real experience” of designing a game.

The brains behind the video game Auroras. From left to right, Daniil Kouznetsov, Leora Rogovein, Christine Murad, Jasmin Lantos and Linden Li (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

If any of the students' projects is half as entertaining or addictive as Angry Birds, it will probably get an “A.” Its creators may also get jobs out of it. Ubisoft and Google have hired past stars of Level Up, Engels said.

The U of T-OCAD U games this year run the gamut from a Doctor Who-inspired “puzzler” to a stealth game in which the goal is to steal stuff from a house party without getting caught. Here are the highlights:

Auroras

Team members: From U of T, Emily Han, Daniil Kouznetsov, Jasmin Lantos, Christine Murad and Leora Rogovein, and from OCAD U, Linden Li and Jacqueline Lee

Number of players: Two

Type of game: First-person co-op puzzler

Inspired by Slavic mythology and an episode of Doctor Who with a cult following, Auroras is set in a castle in which a “Doomsday beast” has been set loose. The players take the roles of twin sisters, the evening and morning stars.

“We wanted to start with a message or underlying theme,” said Lantos. “We decided to go with identity because it resonated with a lot of us.”

The sisters have to solve puzzles while avoiding deadly statues that only move and attack when the players are looking away or closing their eyes.

Neon Ascension

Team members: From U of T, Grace Zhu, Philip Bilodeau, Jeffrey Deng, Catherine Wang and Daniel Son, and from OCAD U, Sam Rasmussen and Matt Crans

Number of players: Two

Type of game: Arcade

“Neon Ascension is a competitive endless climber game, where two players compete for survival on a wall of infinite height,” said Zhu, who is in her last year of a computer science major.

“The game is fast-paced, action-packed and features retro-futuristic design in dazzling neon colors. Players stay alive by rearranging adjacent blocks on the wall, giving them plenty of opportunity to save themselves or sabotage their opponents.”

Pickup Artist

Team members: From U of T, Bo Yuan Zheng, Isabelle Chan, Chang Cheng Zhang, Wayne Zhang and Juan Camilo Osario, and from OCAD U, Bailey Stanutz and Angelo Flores

Number of players: Up to 11, but currently best played with two to four

Type of game: Casual/indie/stealth

You're the worst guests at a house party, trying to make off with as much of the hosts' furniture without attracting attention. The laws of physics don't seem to apply here – fridges and couches bounce around, adding an element of silliness.

“Quickly steal small objects yourself, work together to steal bigger objects, and win by being the person who steals the most,” said Zhang.

Don't try this at anyone’s home.

Sizis

Team members: From U of T, Ben Hu, Anthony Chernyak, Kelley Tai, John Lacuna, Olusola Nylander and Daniel Murphy, and from OCAD U, Colin Brannon and Melissa Gaa

Number of players: One

Type of game: Exploration and puzzle

The player is set loose in a cartoonish fantasy world with floating islands where they can choose a path to go on different adventures. The goal is to collect special rocks along the way, but to do that one must grow or shrink objects using magical powers.

“During testing, we saw that people would get stuck and would have to wrap their heads around how to solve the puzzle,” said Hu, a fourth-year computer science student. “Once they did, they felt great.”

At the end of the game, the player gets to flex their powers in a “sandbox area” where there are no limits to their ability to enlarge or shrink things. (A demo of Sizis for OSX and Windows can be downloaded here)