Virtual reality games are quickly taking the world by storm. WPI students are also at the forefront of this technology, and created ARIN, a sci-fi horror game for the HTC Vive that offers players an even more immersive gaming experience. ARIN was also one of the student-created games featured at IMGD’s booth during PAX East 2017.
Creative Discovery That Creates Fun
Research in Interactive Media and Game Development (IMGD) at WPI is all about collaboration, innovation, exploring, and trailblazing in one of the world’s most exciting, rapidly changing industries. How many researchers can say that the end result of their work is the creation of fun and addictive games and new forms of media?
Learn more about the many areas in which WPI’s IMGD faculty and students are pushing the boundaries of interactive media and game development in the pursuit of creative ways to improve and expand upon existing technologies—creating truly groundbreaking forms of new media.
EcoKids and the Paper Pests
Games aren’t just fun—they can also teach players about the world around them. EcoKids and the Paper Pests, an MQP by five IMGD students, is an educational game about invasive species based on an actual event in New Zealand; players perform the same techniques ecologists used to solve the problem in real life. EcoKids and the Paper Pests was the winner of the Serious Alpha Category at the 2015 MassDiGI Game Challenge.
Jazzy Mind
Four students are the brains behind Jazzy Mind, a crime-solving investigation computer game set in New Orleans in the early 60s. As Jazzy Mind, an inspector who’s investigating a murder case, players listen to characters’ inner thoughts and emotions through jazz music, and analyze the kinds of tracks played in order to solve the mystery.
Faculty Research Interests
The research interests of IMGD faculty members are just as diverse as the games and apps they create. Whether they're working on the newest virtual reality game, testing an app to prevent drunk driving, designing and animating new characters, or creating a cutting-edge learning technology, they're always testing the limits of what's possible in games. Below are the specific research interests of each faculty member; visit their individual profiles for more information.
| Research Focus Area | Associated IMGD Faculty |
|---|---|
| 3D Modeling & Technical Art | Ralph Sutter |
| Animation | Ralph Sutter |
| Artificial Intelligence | Emmanuel Agu |
| Authoring Systems | Brian Moriarty |
| Authoring Tools | Dean O'Donnell |
| Computer Graphics | Emmanuel Agu |
| Diversity as a Game Mechanic | Emmanuel Agu |
| Educational Games | Ivon Arroyo Erin Ottmar |
| Game Design | |
| Game Industry & Policy | Jennifer deWinter |
| Game-Based Learning | Lee Sheldon |
| Gameplay as a Mechanism to Reinforce Narrative | Farley Chery |
| History of Video Games | Dean O'Donnell |
| Information Visualization | Lane Harrison |
| Interactive Media |
| Research Focus Area | Associated IMGD Faculty |
|---|---|
| Interactive Narrative | Brian Moriarty Dean O'Donnell Lee Sheldon |
| Japanese Game Culture | Jennifer deWinter |
| Learning Technologies | Ivon Arroyo Erin Ottmar |
| Location-Aware Media | Emmanuel Agu |
| Mobile Capture | Farley Chery |
| Mobile Graphics | Emmanuel Agu |
| Network Games | Mark Claypool Charles Rich |
| Participatory Design | Alexandrina Agloro |
| Pipeline Optimization | Farley Chery |
| Play & User Testing | Jennifer deWinter |
| Post-modern Game Design | Jeffrey Kesselman |
| Procedural Rhetoric & Games as Influencers on Society | Jeffrey Kesselman |
| Serious Games/Social Issues | Lee Sheldon |
| Transludic Media | Brian Moriarty |
| User-Generated Content | Jeffrey Kesselman |
| Virtual Reality | Jeffrey Kesselman Charles Rich |
| Visual Analytics | Lane Harrison |
Facilities
IMGD faculty members and students enjoy access to state-of- the-art facilities that support research in all aspects of building games and creating art for them, from delving into artificial intelligence to studying sound from the user’s experience.
Our flagship IMGD Lab is a 27-seat teaching/research facility that features Mac and PC workstations equipped with the latest software for building games and creating art. This space is designed so that students can work in a collaborative environment and benefit from synergistic interactive media and game development.
Other IMDG facilities include the following:
- Digital Art Studio suitable for creating and editing digital art and offering ample space and lighting for the traditional arts.
- Interaction lab equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation for human-computer interaction research, including novel input devices, novel display devices, and motion-capture systems.
- User Experience and Decision Making lab where interdisciplinary research teams investigate the user experience using eye-tracking technology as well as traditional methods such as observation.
- Human Subjects Research Lab designed to facilitate research involving human subjects, such as gameplay and focus group evaluation, in a controlled user-study test environment.
- Sound Studio providing a sound-proof space with appropriate digital microphone and noise cancellation technology for recording dialog and sound effects.