Sheridan Game Design students showcase excellence at LevelUp

Sheridan Honours Bachelor of Game Design students have once again demonstrated their skill at the Level Up Showcase 2025, taking home a slate of nine awards for their fourth-year capstone projects. Sheridan students have a long history of success at the showcase, where they have been winning awards since 2017.

LevelUp Showcase is an annual student competition that fosters student talent in game design, game art and computer science. The event provides a space where students can showcase their work to a large audience of peers and attendees and receive valuable feedback and advice from industry experts. This year’s event, held April 12 in Toronto, featured over 150 games from more than 20 postsecondary schools.

“This year’s LevelUp Showcase once again highlighted the exceptional creativity, talent and skill of Sheridan’s game design students,” said Jeffrey Pidsadny, professor and program coordinator in Sheridan’s Honours Bachelor of Game Design program in the Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design. “We are proud of our students' accomplishments, bringing home nine awards, including a win for best overall game.”

Game design students had the opportunity to work with students in the Music Scoring for Screen and Stage certificate program and the Honours Bachelor of Music Theatre Performance program to help bring their projects to life through recording sessions and the work of voice actors. This cross-program, interdisciplinary collaboration has been fostered over several years in the Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design and highlights the benefits of students having access to the skills of their peers in other programs.

“The students have the chance to practice ‘getting the gig’ by composers presenting composing demo reels and voice acting students submitting acting demos for games, and eventually working together to complete these projects,” said Charlie Finlay, Music Scoring for Screen & Stage program coordinator. “Collaboration on real projects with real people gives students real challenges of developing the soft skills they need to work in industry.” 

First place in the category of Best Overall Game went to graduating students Kien Ho, Violet Regier, Amy Salomon and Grace Yang, along with Koren Hu and Shan (Angelina) Zhai from U of T, for Marco Polo. The game was developed during their co-op term in spring/summer 2024 and also won Best Overall Game at the CNE Gaming Garage in 2024. Marco Polo is “a small game about two dots. Exploring new places and finding each other.” 

Second place in the Best Overall Game and Honourable Mention – Innovating Technology categories went to Layla Ali, Davide Ashley, Emily Barraclough, Lucille Coates, Sile Keenan and Robin Makariak for their game Dissonance, which requires players to keep to the rhythm while following a band of rebellious musicians, as they weaponize music against a label trying to sanitize and erase their sound. 

Second place for People’s Choice, third place for Artistic Achievement and third place for Achievement in Audio went to Clean Getaway, a project of Rek Carlson, Sarah Chambers, Sam Khan, Charlie Kompare, Joshua Michalski and Iris Wei. Clean Getaway has players grabbing “three of your friends and enter this cutesy and chaotic car chase. Work together to fight off the oil enemies chasing you by shooting them with your bubble guns.”

Third place for People’s Choice went to Ewe Few Crew, a game created by Todd Brooks-Marling, Launa Bucher-Austin, Rui Jian, David Lopez Solis, Luka Vukmanovic and Jack You. In Ewe Few Crew, “you and your partner are set out on an epic journey to bring livestock back to your homeland. Little did you know that the pasture you took this flock from was that of the gods, and they aren't happy.”

Honourable Mention – Artistic Achievement and Honourable Mention – Innovating Technology went to Hourglass, created by Zimu Chen, Enchong Guo, Songyang Huang, Tango, Dong Zhai and Yixing Zhang. Their action game has players “fight for humanity’s survival...an action-packed adventure on a moon space station under robot siege.”

Both the Clean Getaway and Hourglass teams worked with students in Sheridan’s Music Scoring for Screen and Stage and Honours Bachelor or Music Theatre Performance program to bring audio and voice elements into their games.

Unlock your talent for game design in Sheridan’s Honours Bachelor of Game Design and discover how graduates of the program are winning awards and getting their work recognized across the industry. 

Photo: First place in the Best Overall Game category went to the Marco Polo team: Kien Ho, Koren Hu, Violet Regier, Amy Salomon, Grace Yang and Angelina Zhai, pictured above with instructor Elias Adum.