ArtCenter Students Win Prestigious Game Design Award for Third Straight Year

Students from ArtCenter College of Design have won the alt.ctrl.GDC Audience Award at the 27th Annual Independent Games Festival for their innovative game “ChromaCorp,” marking the school’s third consecutive win in the category.

The award, presented during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, recognizes games using “unconventional, accessible or alternative physical controls,” according to event organizers.

“ChromaCorp” immerses players in a “dream job” at a fictional company that controls the global color supply. Players balance office work with acts of rebellion as they uncover the company’s questionable methods for harvesting color, ultimately facing a choice between meeting quotas or joining with other employees to quietly resist the company’s influence.

“This award is the culmination of countless hours by our students to create a game that is unlike any other,” said Christophe Gomez, ArtCenter’s associate chair of the Game Design program. “It is enormously satisfying to see their creativity acknowledged by a very discerning audience of game lovers, in addition to seeing ChromaCorp placed amongst the top experimental game projects.”

The win follows “ChromaCorp’s” success at IndieCade 2024, where it won the Live Action Award. The game competed against 20 other projects at GDC. This marks the third consecutive year ArtCenter students have received this accolade, following the successes of “Chú Mó” in 2024 and “Kitchen Kauldron” in 2023.

The student team includes Ethan Chamberlain, Jason Jiang, Irene Jung, Miree Kim, Nicole Kim, Fox Miao, Daeun Min, Sydney Price, Christina Wang, Monica Zhao and Galina Zhu. Justin Andarza, an ArtCenter faculty member, led the team.

Game Design is a curricular track in ArtCenter’s Entertainment Design department, which also offers tracks in Concept Design and Animation. The program focuses on creating game concepts through prototyping and production across multiple platforms, with training in user experience, programming, design languages, and the production process.

Unlike most art programs, ArtCenter’s Entertainment Design program uniquely culminates in a Bachelor of Science degree, versus a Bachelor of Arts, underscoring the technical rigor required alongside creative storytelling and gameplay.

ArtCenter College of Design, founded in 1930, is recognized as a global leader in art and design education. It is the first design school to receive the United Nations’ Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status. Its alumni work at leading companies including Pixar, Disney, DreamWorks, Sony Pictures Animation, Riot Games, Activision Blizzard and Netflix.