Life of a Sägefish is a 2D underwater game, created with the Fish Engine. The challenge is to collect coins and watch out for enemies to enter the next level and in the end the final stage.

An artificial intelligence system roughly based on concepts from Dietrich Dörner's PSI architecture. The AI is supposed to exhibit more human-like and varied behavior than traditional implementations.

Dive into the dynamic world of Falling Sand 2, a captivating sandbox game where creativity and strategy reign supreme. Control a single pixel navigating through intricate levels filled with interactive elements like sand, water, fire, plants, and more. Utilize your wits to solve challenging puzzles, harnessing the unique properties of each element to overcome obstacles and reach your goals. From growing plants to extinguishing fires and creating stone pathways, every level offers a new challenge. Prepare to master the elements and uncover the secrets of this mesmerizing puzzle adventure!

[GL III]: Cyber Clash is a cyberpunk themed single player MOBA that takes place in the tragic world of the Holotrons. This game is powered by the MSForge game engine. [Thesis]: Tactical shooter is a popular video games genre in both casual and competitive gaming. As games of this genre are usually round based and players are playing on a generally small number of maps again and again, map balancing has a big influence on the user experience of the players. This thesis looks into the map balancing of Counter-Strike 2, a representative game of the genre, by identifying relevant factors of map balancing and their significance.

Student poster presentations

Top down fighting game made in a custom 2D Game Engine.

tryAgain is a 2D Puzzle Platformer, in which you solve levels by cooperating with the ghosts created by your previous attempts. The game is implemented using a custom OpenGL engine, based around the entity component system EnTT. The engine supports physics with the help of the Box2D library and allows you to build user interfaces with Dear ImGui.

seek2speak is a 2D game engine that can be used to create hidden object games. The game is designed to help learners learn new languages in a creative way. By hiding various objects, a playful way of learning is to be created. Instead of simply memorising vocabulary, the game establishes a connection between the words and pictures and thus also addresses the visual level. With seek2speak's level editor, an easy way is provided to make similar games and own levels.

Space Cleanup is a 2D space adventure game, where you have to defend your satellites against your enemies and space scrap. Try to stay operative for as long as you can and ensure that there are always at least 3 of your satellites still in action.

HexChess is a LAN-multiplayer chess game that supports various chess variants. While the default chess variant can be played, HexChess also features different versions, such as Glinski's hexagonal chess variant and even hexagonal three-player chess. In addition to playing these variants, players can create their own, with custom board sizes, piece constellations, and even movement rules. Both the piece colors and the board can be customized. HexChess is built with a custom C++ engine, utilizing low-level libraries.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to develop a serious game with the objective of imparting fundamental knowledge about nutrition, particularly focussing on macronutrients as well as caloric intake and associated health implications. The design process is based on an ontological mapping approach of learning elements and game elements as proposed by Chetitah and von Mammen in conjunction with the utilization of a serious game design framework such as the Design, Play and Experience framework.

Paper Engine is a game engine for creating mixed 2D/3D games. It is written in C++, utilizing OpenGL and a few low level libraries. The engine includes features such as an ECS, events, scene rendering, physics, animation, assets, audio and a basic editor. The action side scroller "Curse of the Salamander" was created alongside the engine making use of the mixed 2D/3D style.

In Runicus, you guide a witch through her journey by drawing the runes needed for her spells. Using a drawing tablet as an input, you must be careful to keep to the given rune! If you draw too poorly, the spell fails. The Runyc Engine was built with a focus on drawing tablet input from the start. Drawing tablets allow access to the unique input of pen position and its pressure. Games are programmed using scenes and custom components and systems. Runyc Engine also features an easily expandable GUI system so programmers are not restricted by the preexisting elements.

Beat Engine is an Engine Library for C++ that focuses on the development of rhythm games. It provides inbuilt functionality for BPM estimation, a custom input system, and synchronisation of sprite movements to the music. It comes with Simple Rhythm Game, a proof-of-concept game, showing how a rhythm game can be built with Beat Engine. It is a basic rhythm game inspired by Stepmania, which allows the player to import their own .mp3 files.

Just Chess is as the name implies just chess. Play against yourself or others in Couch-Coop. The game is made with the Board-Engine which allows the user to easily create board games, through a simple yet powerful scene system and adaptive ui.

"Schnauz" is a simple but fun card game where you have to swap the cards on your hand with cards in the middle in order to obtain more points than your opponents. The game is powered by the "Shuffle Engine", a game engine that provides basic card game functionalities like drawing, swapping and playing cards within a turn based game loop to simplify the development of card games.

HomeSpace is a cozy and engaging 2D game where players must maintain their spaceship by completing tasks such as repairing technical components, cleaning debris and fending off attacking drones. This game was made using the Cozy Engine, providing smooth gameplay and nice visuals.

The GPT-based Ontology-based Analysis Assistant is a helper and guidance in the development and assessment of serious games. Serious games are games, which are purposefully designed with educational goals beyond mere entertainment, which creates additional challenges in their development. The analysis assistant tool is based on the popular Large Language Model (LLM) GPT-4 and was fine-tuned with the KING-framework, a knowledge system for assessing serious games in its various components. The LLM is a type of artificial intelligence and provides the ability to create natural language sentences, as well as having conversational abilities. The fine-tuning enhances its ability to guide users effectively, facilitating the communication of information to the LLM and allowing less experienced users to use the tool effectively. This integration not only improves the factual accuracy of the responses but also ensures that the analyses are detailed and contextually relevant. Consequently, the GPT-based Ontology-based Analysis Assistant provides support to developers and educators, enabling them to create more effective and engaging educational experiences through rigorous and insightful game assessments.

[GL III]: My Game Lab III game is a two-player dungeon shooter. You play as two crocodiles who are raiding dungeons. But if you see your other player as teammate or competitor is in your hands. Your goal is to reach the last dungeon and defeat the boss there. The game was made in C++ and OpenGL and has a minimal self-made engine at its core. The engine features an ECS-System, input system, rudimentary scene management and render functionality. [Thesis]: My bachelor thesis revolves around developing a proof-of-concept device, that measures end-to-end latency with an FPGA board. This approach offers a variety of advantages compared to other measuring techniques. The most important one is that the measurent can happen online without interfering the users perception. This approach also has the potential to have a deterministic (or close to deterministic) latency add-on while having accurate measurements (in contrast to micro-controller based approaches or frame-counting). The Snickerdoodle-black plus the pismasher baseboard is used for my bachelor thesis. We use HDMI as video transmission standard. The idea is to let the video-output (from e.g. a PC) go through the FPGA and from the FPGA to the display. The programme under test can then encode into the video signal, in which frame inputs were received, which the FPGA will read out, add a timestemp and save it on SD-card. The FPGA also needs to be connected to the input device to be informed about when the input actually happened as soon as possible. The time difference between the "actual input" and the "received input" can then be used to calculate the latency and jitter over an arbitrary timespan.

Laser Adventure is an engaging 2D puzzle game where players solve challenging levels by guiding laser beams to hit specific targets. Players manipulate the beams using mirrors and other interactive objects, requiring strategic thinking and precise execution. Each level presents a unique puzzle, incorporating multiple playing fields and interconnected lasers, adding an extra layer of complexity and excitement. The game is powered by my custom-developed Resource Engine, which enhances performance and efficiency. The engine employs an Entity-Component-System (ECS) architecture, enabling flexible and efficient management of game entities. A robust Scenegraph simplifies the structuring of complex scenes and animations. Additionally, the advanced resource management system ensures minimal asset loading times and reduced memory usage during gameplay, providing a smooth and seamless gaming experience.

Trial and Terror is a 2D platformer based around switching between different dimensions which show different versions of the game world. This allows for interesting and unique level layouts as well as a fast play style centered on exploiting this mechanic. The game is implemented in a custom engine written in C++ using OpenGl which is centered around enabling the custom dimension switching mechanic. The engine also provides all the necessary basics for a 2D game like asset loading and rendering, entities, UI and scene management.

[GL III]: Ever played a fighting game, be it on console, PC or even at a local arcade, and got frustrated by missing about 15 motion inputs in a row? "What is a Dragon Punch?" is here for you, providing a much simpler avenue to the classical non-platform 2-player 2D fighting game experience. It is powered by BoxingEngine, a C++-based engine for developing fighting games and other games that take advantage of box-based collisions. It follow the KISS (keep it short and simple) principle wherever possible to provide a simple way of coding simple games. [Thesis]: Trust is a contentious topic in machine learning and high accuracy is not enough. Hence, we utilize methods from the field of xAI, adapting them to surrogate models of boid systems, to create explanations of the surrogate's internal reasoning and provide interpretability-based trust in this interesting optimization method for multi-agent systems. We further highlight engineering flaws and provide improvement suggestions based on the results found in the explanation process.

[GL III]: Hive Mind is a fast paced first person shooter game, in which you have to shoot as many drones and targets as possible to beat the Highscore The Innumerable engine is the engine on which the game is built. The render engine has texture support, a simplified version of Phong-Shading and instancing. This way hundreds of thousands of meshes can be rendered. On top of that the engine intigrates a physics library, and with that a custom Line Renderer which visualizes the different colliders. [Thesis]: Applying Swarm Intelligence Algorithms for Enhanced Highway Navigation in Autonomous Vehicles

When it comes to Virtual Reality, social interaction between users in a virtual space has progressively gained interest. The realistic representation of users through animated avatars affects the User Experience during such interactions in many positive ways. To provide such an experience, so called speech-driven gesture generation systems are used to represent human behavior on a virtual avatar, based on verbal input. This work focuses on implementing an Animation System for physical input which expands the functionality of such a speech-driven system and creates smooth transitions between both through a Blending Mechanism.

This thesis investigates and develops methods for the efficient rendering, storage, and manipulation of bulk volumes within an interactive construction simulation environment. The primary objectives are to explore efficient storage solutions for bulk data in a 3D simulation environment, devise techniques for effective data manipulation while ensuring accuracy and performance, and enable real-time data rendering without compromising simulation interactivity. A sparse voxel octree data structure that allows for the efficient storage and modification of bulk volumes was implemented successfully, along with a custom meshing algorithm tailored to this specific octree implementation and a chunk-based rendering approach, enabling real-time rendering capabilities.

[GL III]: Ocean Outlaws! Is a top-down 2D Pirate game, in which you control a pirate ship in an attempt to survive the Marines' attack for as long as you can. The game is made using EisEngine, an all-round 2D code-base for games made as a part of the project alongside the game. [Thesis]: With Agent-Based Procedural Planning of Cities, research will be made to propose an idea as to how it would be possible to incorporate processes from real-world urban planning and design into the procedural generation of cities in video-games. The project still being a work-in-progress, the presentation will focus on the theoretical aspects of the research rather than any implementations for proof-of-concepts.

[GL III] A surreal golf experience with orbital gravity in a 2D top-down space environment. Realized with the Aphelion Engine, including an ECS, 2D physics, rendering, UI and more. [Thesis] This bachelor thesis explores the procedural generation of roofs on unknown building footprints. A Unity prototype is developed where various operations are made on skeletal roof structures with focus on stylistic flexibility.

SailSwarmSim is a simulation depicting autonomous sailboats with swarm intelligence. The simulation focuses on the interaction and coordination between groups of sailboats, which mimic the collective behavior of natural swarms, like fish swarms. The sailboats navigate on a terrain that represents the Lake Constance and demonstrate flocking behaviors like object circling, as well as pathfinding and group splitting. The User can choose a goal on the terrain for the boats to swim to, they can select a buoy for the boats to circle around it and create up to 100 boats, which can be split into a maximum of 25 groups.

We created a Unity plug-in for our stakeholder "TOUGH"`s E-learning app, allowing users to receive verifiable Digital Certificates after successfully absolving courses on the app. These Certificates serve as a reflection of the users achievements and also improve the credibility of the company. Our work entailed the generation of a verification code using cryptographic methods, setting up a database to store information relevant to the creation of the document and a node.js server to handle the verification process.

Interactive Scenarios is a plugin for Unreal Engine 5 which enables the user to create state machine based quests using a visual editor. Creating quests has never been easier for all levels of experience.

Embark on an epic adventure, led by a otherworldly entity. Join arms with other adventurers, artificial or not and explore the dynamic world. Enjoy AI-powered stroytelling in a Dungeons and Dragons 5e based world. Go on a journey, where your choices shape the adventure, altering the way through every corner, cave and tavern.

[GL III]: Build with Bara is a 2D platformer in which you play as a Capybara that has the ability to place blocks. With a little skill and creativity, you can build your own path through the various levels. The game was developed using the custom-built Capy2D-Engine, which specializes in level design, scene and entity management, and the integration of various assets. [Thesis]: In my Bachelor's thesis, I will be working on finalizing the "Sweet Decision" app, which is already under development. This app will then be used to thoroughly test and evaluate the efficiency of gamification in neuropsychology.

Music and sound in video games accompany the gameplay. Typically, the user’s input changes the internal state of the game, which, in turn, triggers sounds and changes the music. Our project was to flip this process around. We created a plugin in Godot to save and analyze MIDI inputs and add them as gameplay inputs. We also created a short game, that will let a live musician change its internal state with his music simultaneously to a player.

[GL III]: "Last Heart" requires an engaging mix of strategic thinking and the ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances. Combining this with an interesting narrative provides the player with a gripping and harsh experience. For the interested game developer, it offers an easily understood and malleable code base. With it, it provides a useful basis for other strategy / management game titles. [Thesis]: "The Efficacy of World-in-Miniature in a Video game context" aims to examine and explore the applicability of the World-in-Miniature technology in a VR-game environment. Players will be tested on their ability to familiarize themselves with this technology and then apply these skills and improve them. Different contexts and game environments with various objectives will reveal how useful and intuitive the WiM is for the average player.

Viridi Engine is a program to create simple 2D-games like Ultima Viridi. The fundament of the engine is an entity-component-system to easily expand game objects and create new systems, like for rendering or physics. In Ultima Viridi you play mini-golf. Hold, drag and release your mouse to strike the ball into the goal. With just a button-press you can always switch between play- and edit-mode to change your current level. Are you able to get the best time in every course?