If a recent industry event was any indication, this won’t be the last transmission heard from Brock’s Digital Humanities students.

Their video game creations were put to the test on Friday, Nov. 15, when five teams presented their work for feedback from 18 professional video game developers and scholars.

Fourth-year GAME program student AK Gupta and his team, Dark Matter Observatory, pitched their game, Last Transmission, to an industry panel as part of their Digital Humanities (DDH) capstone project.

The game leaves one player stranded on a desolate planet, their only chance at survival sitting atop an orbiting satellite, while a second player in possession of life-saving information directs their actions from space.

Its creators came together with fellow Brock students, faculty and staff as well as with industry representatives, including President and CEO of Interactive Ontario Lucie Lalumière, to celebrate and reflect on the day at the DDH third annual Industry Night.

Digital Humanities students had the opportunity to pitch their video game project to industry professionals and gaming scholars for feedback as they work towards finishing the game next semester.

Lalumière said from award-winning student projects to alumni shaping Ontario’s interactive digital media landscape, Brock is setting a gold standard for excellence ensuring graduates are ready to lead and innovate in a rapidly evolving field.

“Brock University’s video game and interactive digital media programs clearly have a secret sauce — one that blends talent, faculty savoir-faire, innovation, academic partnerships and industry collaboration,” Lalumière said.

Learning to pitch a game to professional developers and producers was an impactful experience for students, especially as they prepare to share their games with the world at the provincewide 2025 Level Up Showcase.

“Hearing how to make our game better, and hearing what could go wrong, has helped us map our next steps to get our final product ready and prepare for our careers,” Gupta said.

Fourth-year GAME student Ian Darker, a network programmer on Last Transmission, said getting an outside professional view of their game was invaluable.

“Our game is program-heavy, so our instructors insured we had programmers on our panel. Today got us thinking in a different way; some things we thought were validated, others were flagged,” Darker said.

Monique Brown (BA ‘23), a Master of Arts in Game Studies student, sat on the industry panel alongside local video game professional Shane McCafferty and fellow master’s student Mitchell Brown (BSc ‘23) providing feedback to the Last Transmission crew.

Many Brock graduates attended Digital Humanities Industry Night on Friday, Nov. 15, including Kandace Reitzel (BA ’23), left, and Ethan Bowbyes (BA ’22), right, who connected with Jeremy Leipert, Project Coordinator for the Department of Digital Humanities.

Brown, who has expertise in art, sound and narrative design, reviewed the team’s game design documents in addition to listening to their presentation.

“The different perspectives in the room were fascinating, and we shared many ideas with each other. The student presentation was very well done with a strong concept. It was a great day; we all learned a lot together,” Brown said.

Aaron Mauro, DDH Chair and Associate Professor of Digital Media, said the department embraces experiential, project-based courses that simulate working in design studio environments.

“Students learn by making things, working shoulder to shoulder with their instructors; we relish our mistakes as opportunities to learn. If there is a secret to our success, it is a departmental culture that allows us to work together to solve creative and technical challenges,” he said.

Gupta, an aspiring 3D artist and animator, and Darker, a future network engineer, said being amongst passionate peers in the interactive media community at Brock and building projects together from the ground up has been a rewarding process.

As for Last Transmission, the pair described it as “co-dependency with a twist, but you’ll have to play it to find out how it ends.”