The games available on this page were all created by students of the MIT Game Lab and for research purposes. These games are short, 5-15 minute experiences, each made as a polished vertical slice of gameplay.
Find out how these games were made and how they're used by our researchers!
Livable Cities
2017 | Real Estate Entrepreneurship and Socially Responsible Development
Developed for the Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab, LivableCities (working title) creates a playful environment for students to explore the basics of real estate development. Players must manage capital and debt, and decide both what sorts of buildings to build and where. Location of each building is key, as a building’s overall value is influenced by its neighbors – but the type of buildings player choose to build affects how quickly they can build up their capital reserves, and how pleased the citizens of their newly built city are with them.
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A Slower Speed of Light
2012 | Demonstrating Special Relativity
A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. A custom-built, open-source relativistic graphics engine allows the speed of light in the game to approach the player's own maximum walking speed. Visual effects of special relativity gradually become apparent to the player, increasing the challenge of gameplay. Players can choose to share their mastery and experience of the game through Twitter. A Slower Speed of Light combines accessible gameplay and a fantasy setting with theoretical and computational physics research to deliver an engaging and pedagogically rich experience.
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Spacewarduino!
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For Arduino Uno2012 | Digital Archaeology
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the creation of Spacewar!, students and staff from the MIT Game Lab re-implemented the game for the Arduino platform. The students were tasked with interpreting the original source code created for the PDP-1 minicomputer as well as re-creating the tools with which the original game was played by creating custom-made controllers.
Click here for more information, trailers, screenshots, etc...
Past Games (2007-2012)
During the six years we operated as part of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab research initiative, we developed 55 games about many different topics, from artificial intelligence, narrative design, computer graphics and animation to character design, procedurally generated content, interactive fiction, and evolution. These game prototypes were made during the GAMBIT summer internship program, many of which won international recognition at festivals like IndieCade and the Independent Games Festivals held at GDC and GDC China, as well as academic conferences such as Meaningful Play and Foundations of Digital Games.
Below is a list of games created during the GAMBIT summer program, organized by topic.
AI Agent Meme Transfer
Creating sidekick/partner AI
Non-programmer tools for AI
Crowdsourcing AI Design
Artificial Intelligence
Color Theory
Learning Fractions
Negative-number arithmetic
Transformative Learning
Velocity and Displacement
Education and Pedagogy
Accessibility for Visual Impairment
Automated Skeletal Rigging
OLPC Card Game Engine
Physics-based Animation
Procedural Puzzles
Game Development Tools
Adapting Literature
Dream Logic for Puzzles
Emergent Narrative
Hidden Object Games
Nostalgia & Memory
Political Resistance
Narrative Design
Animation Techniques
Failure Feedback
Character Trait Associations
Play Style and Identity
Player Research Tools
Addiction
Learning through Conflicts
Depression
LGBTQ Issues
Project Management
