IMGD Undergraduate Projects | Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Major Qualifying Project (MQP)

As part of WPI’s project-based learning model, every undergraduate completes a Major Qualifying Project (MQP), a culminating experience that enables students to synthesize their learning and tackle real-world problems in their fields of study. For students of IMGD, the MQP is an opportunity to showcase their talents and add another impressive piece to their portfolios. Many students build game prototypes, while others create interactive art exhibits, game development tools, and other forms of media.

But most importantly, we want your MQP to be something that you’re passionate about! Got an awesome idea for that game you’ve always wanted to make? Present your idea at our IMGD MQP Pitch Event and make it a reality! Interested in traveling abroad? Complete your MQP at one of our project centers in Osaka or Kyoto, Japan or with our international partners from New Zealand and Australia. Want to get a head start on your career? Consider completing your MQP under the guidance of one of our many student sponsors, such as Disney International and eBay, and your MQP might just turn into a job offer! With IMGD, you have the flexibility to do what YOU want for your MQP.

Featured IMGD MQPs

Babies & Basilisks

Babies & Basilisks is a virtual reality (VR) party game featuring asymmetric, local multi-user gameplay which allows two types of players to experience one game differently. One player, wearing a VR headset, builds a dungeon-like environment from hallway sections and rooms. Four additional players, in third-person perspective, use a standard gamepad to move their characters through the constructed environment.

Babies & Basilisks MQP

Shotoku's Defense

Shotoku’s Defense is a virtual reality physics-based action game developed for the HTC Vive. The player must survive against enemies across five different locations in a stylized and abstract traditional Japanese temple.

Shotoku's Defense MQP

The Call of Karen

The Call of Karen is a PC simulation comedy game about a 1950s suburban housewife whose home is invaded by Cthulhu. The player controls the titular housewife, Karen, who is trapped in an unhappy marriage taking care of an ungrateful child, and must keep up appearances in the face of a home gone mad.

Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP)

WPI undergraduates put their problem-solving skills to the test during their third-year Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP). Students work on teams to solve problems at the intersection of science, technology, and society on-campus, in local communities, and even across the globe, from designing bicycle paths in WPI’s hometown to launching a mentoring program in Morocco and creating interactive guides for a museum in London.

As an IMGD student, your IQP doesn’t have to be IMGD-related, but our IMGD faculty are proud to advise a number of these projects both on-campus and abroad for those students who do want their IQP to be grounded in IMGD.

Featured IMGD IQPs

IMGD Video Game Archive

In 2006, IMGD established a collection of video game consoles, design documents, and ephemera. Each year, IQP teams work with the archive, maintaining it as a living resource, gathering new materials, and prioritizing what’s already there, as well as what still needs to be acquired.

History of 3D Games Exhibit

PAX East Booth

Our objective for this project was to plan, design, and execute an exhibitor’s booth representing the WPI IMGD program at the Penny Arcade Expo East 2017. We researched experiences of the past two PAX project groups, extensively collaborated with WPI’s Marketing department to design and create content for the booth, and selected student games to showcase.

PAX East Booth 2017 IQP

Course Projects

In addition to their MQP and IQP, IMGD undergraduate students work on a variety of projects in their other courses to build portfolios that showcase their unique work—whether their focus is in animation, game design, or programming—as well as their contributions to student development teams. Consider signing up for one of the team-based courses featured below, and add a shiny new game project to your portfolio!

Featured IMGD Project Courses

IMGD1002: Storytelling in IMGD

For their final project in IMGD1002, students create an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) by combining multiple media to tell a story across online spaces. Fictional people on the internet ask for help with everything from ghost kidnappings to evil corporations trying to capitalize on the fountain of youth. The students make short films, physical artifacts, websites, puzzles, games, and activities for their players, and over the course of six days, host an immersive experience at the intersection of both the real world and fictional elements.

IMGD2500: Design of Tabletop Strategy Games

In IMGD2500, students not only design the mechanics for an original tabletop strategy game, but they design the physical game itself! Through The Game Crafter, a print-on-demand tabletop game manufacturer, students create and potentially publish their board and card games for sale online—all while honing their design and art skills, which can then be transferred over to their digital game development projects.

Busy Bumbling Bees Game Crafter Listing

IMGD2900 & IMGD3900: Digital Game Design I & II

Software engineering, asset production, testing and project management are the means of digital game development, but the end is an experience. Game design is the process of defining, implementing and iteratively refining that experience. IMGD 2900 and 3900 introduce the theory (lehr) and hands-on practice (kunst) of digital game design. Students work in small teams to design, build and test several toys and games using Perlenspiel, an abstract microgame engine developed especially for these courses.

Games and toys created in Perlenspiel

IMGD4000 & IMGD4500: Technical/Artistic Game Development II

Most IMGD students will take Technical Game Development II (IMGD4000) or Artistic Game Development II (IMGD4500), a milestone course that pairs technical students with artistic students to create a finished game in 7 weeks. All teams in the class are given the same basic game mechanics to work from and must create their own unique themes and backstories.