Student Game "Finite Tower" Wins Audience Favorite at GameSig

By Jose Servin

“Finite Tower,” a video game created by Santa Ana College art and animation students, was voted audience favorite May 7 at the fifth annual Intercollegiate Computer Showcase, or GameSig, hosted at the University of California, Irvine.

A team of 18 art students led by programmer Hoa Pham and art director Miguel Dualan created “Finite Tower,” a puzzle-based 3D adventure game based on making ethical decisions.

“It feels great that our whole team gets to be here to see this,” Dualan said.

Each team gave a five-minute live-gameplay presentation in front of an audience of about 100 people in which they described their game and how they built it.

The showcase included 10 teams from six schools. Santa Ana College was the only community college to enter the competition with nine other teams from UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, Cal State Fullerton, Chapman University, and the University of Southern California.

Last year, Irvine Valley College was the only community college to compete.

Created by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, GameSig invited teams of students to present video games they’ve created to a panel of professionals.

This year, two teams from UC Irvine tied for the GameSig cup.

Other categories included best game by a women-led team, best game by a high school team, best engineering and best visuals.

“It was one of those great situations where everyone worked really well together and had a good time. They followed through and they cared, ” SAC art professor Patricia Waterman said.