DePaul Originals Game Studio and the XR Creative Lab
Both DePaul Originals and the XR Lab are housed inside the Jarvis Student Center for Innovation and Collaboration, located on the concourse level of the DePaul Center. DePaul Originals simulates a professional video game studio, where CDM students across disciplines collaborate on the development of a single game across academic quarters until it’s polished enough for public release. The studio focuses on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine as its main development tool. Students develop a specialty while at the same time maintaining a broad skill base. They take on varying responsibilities over the lifetime of the game, and receive development credit on the final shipped product.
The XR Lab is a space for the DePaul community to both create and enjoy XR experiences. It is adjacent to the game studio, allowing for student collaborations.
Development and Research Labs
students can collaborate with faculty on a number of interdisciplinary projects in CDM labs that include:
- The DePaul Instructional Game & Innovation (DIGI) Lab, an in-house educational game studio that collaborates with instructors, university partners, and external collaborators to create learning games and materials for the classroom, around campus, and beyond.
- The Design Research and Games (DRAG) Lab, which focuses on designing and studying games through human centered design approaches and histories;
- Matters at Play, which partners in the creation of interactive advocacy solutions for positive social transformations, especially regarding social justice, health, and environmental issues; and
- The Hybrid Experience Lab (HexLab), which explores novel applications and games that sit at the intersection of opposites, investigating how this hybridity shapes the user experience, and how to design effective and engaging hybrid experiences.
- The Software Usability and Testing Lab, a player-user research space with two rooms (an observation room and a player-participant room) separated by a one-way mirror, capable of supporting multiple types of studies that include (but are not limited to): usability using Morae, eyetracking (Tobii), games user research (usability and playtesting), and focus groups or interviews.
Virtual and Augmented Design Lab
The Virtual and Augmented Design Lab (VAD) hosts classes and projects to research and develop experimental games on emerging platforms. VAD is equipped with the latest hardware including AR headsets/visors, VR headsets with hand and foot trackers, iPhones for augmented reality development, Oculus Quests, Microsoft HoloLenses, HTC Vives, and 24” Cintiq Pros.