The jury named Lucky Tabi the best game at The Hague University of Applied Sciences’ major expo in the Dutch Innovation Factory.
In this game, you solve puzzles by moving platforms with something resembling a fishing rod, opening portals that reveal new puzzles. This rather unusual concept works surprisingly well, and it looks great too. The game will be available on Steam soon.
Lucky Tabi faced competition from games such as Ripples of the Past, Shattered and LabRats. Each had something special; I particularly liked the visual style of Ripples of the Past. But in terms of gameplay, Lucky Tabi was the deserved winner.
For the first time, all the games were made in the open-source game engine Godot. That is notable because Godot is not yet as mainstream as Unity, for example, which was used previously. The quality of the games did not suffer.
The expert jury came from the games industry. Olaf Abbenhuis is the former CTO of Paladin Studios and works at Abstraction. Franz LaZerte is a Godot programmer working with Adriaan de Jongh on Rift Riff.
GameLab
GameLab had a prominent presence at this Expo with three projects: InnovA58 for Rijkswaterstaat, USB-BOT by KingKelpo and Final Arena by Unsane Interactive.
All three projects amazed the audience. InnovA58 had been transformed since the previous Expo, thanks to the work of the students involved and GameTailors. Visitors could now explore the entire area, zoom in and out, and walk around.
USB-BOT and Final Arena were played enthusiastically, by both passing visitors and invited guests from the games industry, helping the creators’ talent reach a wider audience.
Working towards this moment and showing their work was stressful for the students, but a valuable learning experience.
Open Day
The Expo took place on a Saturday, coinciding with The Hague University of Applied Sciences’ open day. Alongside the GameLab and Game Development Minor showcases, there were projects from the foundation semester, Innovative Development and ADS & AI.