An end-of-year exhibition celebrated the creative achievements of first-year students from the brand-new BA (Hons) Games Art and Design course at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB).
Curated by course leader Dr Alina Potemska and lecturer Jordan Cutler, the exhibition, which was held on Monday 9 June showcased work from the unit Storytelling Through Games.
“This exhibition was the very first time we’ve ever showcased games art and design as we’re a brand-new course at AUB," comments Alina. “Students from the course showed games that they’d created and built during their last unit.
"Our course focuses on serious and artistic games. In this unit, students explored the storytelling aspect of game design – how to build a thoughtful narrative, create an appealing visual environment and implement it into engaging gameplay.
“Visitors were invited to play, reflect, and discuss these interactive experiences while discovering the voices of the next generation of narrative game designers.”
The exhibition featured narrative-driven game prototypes developed in Unreal Engine, with each project exploring storytelling approaches through meaningful player choices, conflict-driven interactions, environmental obstacles and character-led journeys. Designed across three evolving chapters, the games also experimented with immersive sound design and interactive narrative mechanics.
Zach De Saulles, who made a game called Neural Network, says, “My game is about this military-based research lab where AI has gone rogue. Everyone's disappeared and you're trying to either defeat the AI, if it’s killed everyone, or you escape with your own life.”
Zach came to AUB after completing a two-year college course in game art and design.
“Back in college, I focused mainly on the 3D modelling side," he explains, "but on this course we’ve been doing a lot of programming so far. It’s at a level that I never would have imagined doing, so it’s been amazing seeing it all come together today.
“It's pretty fun being able to show my game off to people and seeing other people play it and see how they go about it.”
Meanwhile, Lilac Isaac’s game is called Merry Hell.
She says, “You start in an office; you're living quite a mundane life and then you get a message on your computer and they're offering you a happier life if you take this pill. And you're like, well, what have I got to lose? Then you have to find a few clues to open a locker, and then once you take it, you're in a new land that's quite dreamlike, so you can't really tell what's real.
“I wanted to do something different with the horror genre, something that was less generic, like jump scares and stuff, and go for something that was overly happy, to the point where it's quite creepy.
“As well as seeing people play my game today, it’s also been really interesting to see what other people on my course have been getting up to. I feel like people have kept quite quiet about their skills and everyone has completely different styles, so it's cool to see and really inspiring.”
Creating a game called Turn of the Bilge, Mikhail McMorrow explains, “It's a hard sciencey desk job game where you work in this sea-based area. It's hard to critique your own thing because you’re used to all the controls and stuff. But I feel like I'm happy with the results.”
Emeline Nevers-White showcased her game, Grave Flower, saying, “It's like cosy graveyards, taking care of a graveyard simulator game. You tend to the graves and then find out there's spirits that you can talk to, and they want custom flower bouquets for their graves. You give them flowers, and they tell you a little story from their time to help pass them on.”
Emeline joined the BA (Hons) Games Art and Design degree as a mature student, with a background in illustration and wanted to learn more than drawing.
“This was a lot of programming, a lot of coding and stuff, which I didn’t know, and that's what I wanted to learn," she says. "I'm really happy with the transition so far from illustration to programming. It's so satisfying when it all comes together.
“This event’s been cute because during class we don't really get to see what each other are working on. We’re all being taught the same things, but we all come out with such different work where our creativity takes us in different directions. Some people have made visual novels, others have more puzzle-based platform games – it's really inspiring to see all these unique ideas coming to life.”
Alina adds, “This has been an amazing event; I’m really proud of the students and of their hard work to present their brilliant games. A showcase like this usually happens at the end of the whole degree, so it was ambitious organising it at the end of the first year, especially for a brand-new course.
“I’d like to thank our incredible team who turned this bold, visionary idea into reality. Huge thanks to our dedicated lecturer Jordan Cutler and to our visiting tutor Juan Echenique, for leading the excellent Narrative classes, and to our fabulous tech team – Aran, Maral and Ceri – for their invaluable support. We couldn’t have done it without you!
“And a special well done and thank you to the students who have all been incredible, their games are of a really high standard and seeing them watch as their games are being played by their peers is fantastic.”
