Satisfy Your Inner Gamer

04/19/2019 1:00 AM

For the sixth year in a row, the Peoria Riverfront Museum has partnered with Bradley University’s Interactive Media Department as the home of FUSE. This event was created to showcase a year’s worth of animation and design work by Bradley’s interactive media students. It will take place on Saturday, April 27, from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

The one-day event is produced by Bradley University students within the Interactive Media department’s four majors: Game Design, Animation, Interactive Media and User Interaction/User Experience. Bradley Game Design Professor David Abzug said, “What I love about the students coming up with ideas and making their own pitches is that we get projects that I could never think to assign.”

Some of this year’s projects are named About Me 3D, URGO, Pizza Pop, and Apocolicious: A Recipe for Disaster. Each game showcases the students’ strengths and imagination. Apocolicious: A Recipe for Disaster, cooks up a monster through mixing ingredients and unlocking level two, where the monster learns how to cook properly. Pizza Pop, an interactive game, includes a hand-crafted controller for players to use to create their own pizza. About Me 3D and URGO work with OSF St. Francis Medical Center and the Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center to create technology that can be used to help and teach people about health.

Each game has a dedicated team of students working behind the scenes to prepare for the showcase. A FUSE senior, Selena Pappas, said, “About Me 3D is actually a published app on the App Store. It’s an interactive coloring book project where kids can play games by scanning it with their phone. They can show 3D models with real-time coloring render on it.”

For more information on FUSE, visit bradleyinteractive.com. Questions about the event can be directed to the Department of Interactive Media at (309) 677-4528.