Enter a dangerous castle, full of hidden traps, mysterious enemies and deceptive treasure chests. Run, jump, collect coins and fight your way through Slimes, the Ghost Bride and a mighty charging boss.
Keep your head, stay out of the way of the deadly spikes, and shoot back where you can. Not every treasure chest is safe, and every step may put you in a new danger.
Will you survive the castle and complete the final challenge?
Memory Labyrinth: Designing an Asymmetric Cooperative Game to Explore Intergenerational Communication
Mohamed Uzair Pat (25D506M)
Description:
Memory Labyrinth is an asymmetric cooperative puzzle game designed to explore how game design can support communication and collaboration between people from different generations. Inspired by differences in planning, exploration, trust, and decision-making identified through a formative survey, the game introduces two complementary roles: the Mapmaker, who focuses on strategic planning, and the Explorer, who navigates the labyrinth and solves environmental challenges.
Unlike traditional cooperative games where players often share the same information, Memory Labyrinth uses information asymmetry, requiring players to communicate continuously to solve puzzles and progress together. The current prototype includes three completed cooperative levels that demonstrate the game’s core mechanics, while additional content, narrative, and gameplay systems are planned for future development.
This project adopts a Research-through-Design approach, combining user research with iterative game prototyping to investigate how asymmetric gameplay can encourage meaningful intergenerational interaction and inspire future research on cooperative game design.
Programme: Master of Science in Game Development and Management (MSc-GDM)
Supervisor: Dr. Luna Liu
Narrative Justification in Emotion-Driven Games: Investigating the Impact of Context Matching on Player Immersion and Perceived Embarrassment
ASGHAR Isma (25D508M)
Description:
This thesis investigates how narrative context shapes the player experience in games that use facial expressions as input. Using a custom-built Unity prototype with real-time webcam-based emotion detection, the study tested two contrasting scenarios with thirty adult participants. In the first scenario, players were simply told to smile at a camera to open a door no story, no reason, just a command. In the second, called the Verdant Lock, the same mechanic was wrapped in a science-fiction narrative where an alien organism responded to human emotions, and living vines visibly reacted to the player’s emotional state in real time. Despite the technology being identical in both cases, the results were dramatic: player immersion rose from an average score of 1.46 out of 5 to 4.29, while feelings of embarrassment dropped from 4.47 to 2.16. Most remarkably, every single participant showed this pattern without exception, producing a perfect statistical effect size.
The findings carry a clear and practical message for game designers: when a game asks players to perform a facial expression, the story surrounding that moment is not optional it is essential. Without narrative context, players feel self-conscious and exposed, as though they are being tested rather than playing. With it, the same action feels natural, purposeful, and immersive. This study demonstrates that the gap between an awkward interaction and a meaningful one is not a matter of better technology it is a matter of better storytelling. By grounding emotion-based mechanics in the logic of the game world, developers can transform what might otherwise feel like an uncomfortable system demand into a genuinely engaging moment of play.
Programme: Master of Science in Game Development and Management (MSc-GDM)
Supervisor: Dr. Luna Liu
Breathing Tree – Evaluating the Efficacy of Rhythm-Synced Visual Mechanics in a 2D Atmospheric Game for State-Anxiety
HAMZA, Muhammad Ameer (25D504M)
Description:
Breathing Tree is a simple 2D game designed to help university students feel less anxious, without any special hardware or sensors. Players hold and release the spacebar to match a pulsing circle on screen, which naturally slows their breathing through a process called motor-respiratory coupling. Over five minutes, a cherry blossom tree grows through nine visual stages as the player keeps a steady rhythm.
The game was tested with 34 participants during the 2026 examination period. Players who used Breathing Tree reduced their anxiety by nearly 15 points on the STAI scale, around 76 percent more than those who listened to a guided meditation. They also felt more focused and noticed a real change in their breathing, without ever being told they were doing a breathing exercise.
This is the first study to show that a standard keyboard game can guide breathing therapeutically with no instructions or sensors. It runs on any ordinary computer in just five minutes, making it a practical and enjoyable mental health tool for students during high-pressure exam periods.
Programme: Master of Science in Game Development and Management (MSc-GDM)
Supervisor: Dr. Luna Liu
Design and Empirical Research on Therapeutic Narrative Puzzle Games Based on Reflective Play and Metaphorical Design
WANG, Chenyi (25D502M)
Description:
You will play the role of Li Mo, a company employee in the game. Due to an accident, you have unexpectedly traveled to a fantasy world. You embark on an adventure in this new world and constantly reflect on the wrong things you have done in the past. At the end of the game, you successfully bring peace to this world and achieve reconciliation with your past self in the original reality.
Programme: Master of Science in Game Development and Management (MSc-GDM)
Supervisor: Dr. Luna Liu
Mulan Shadow Puppetry Play: An Interactive Game for Cultural Heritage Transmission to Young Adults
GONG, Hao Chen (25D503M)
Description:
“Mulan Shadow Puppetry Play” is an interactive game designed to bridge traditional Chinese shadow puppetry with contemporary youth culture, specifically targeting young Chinese adults to foster appreciation and engagement with this intangible cultural heritage. The game employs a dual-core design philosophy: “Historical Accuracy as the Skeleton, Female Empowerment as the Core,” ensuring cultural authenticity while resonating with modern values. Through a three-stage gameplay flow—Grandparent-Grandchild Dialogue, Character Assembly, and Performance Control—players transition from passive observers to active cultural interpreters, gaining hands-on experience with shadow puppet construction and storytelling. User studies with participants aged 22-25 demonstrated remarkable outcomes, with an average score of 4.8/5 in cultural understanding and a 92% increase in interest toward traditional shadow puppetry. By seamlessly integrating gamification theory with embodied cognition principles, the project creates an immersive learning environment that not only preserves cultural knowledge but also inspires a new generation to explore, appreciate, and potentially continue the legacy of Chinese shadow puppetry as a living art form.
Programme: Master of Science in Game Development and Management (MSc-GDM)
