Where Imagination Meets Innovation
It’s that time of year again—Bradley students are rushing to complete their animation, game design, or user experience design projects to showcase at the 12th annual Interactive Media showcase known as FUSE, held at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.
This year, 21 teams put together projects ranging from board games and video games to user experience designs, animations, and more. We spoke to Bradley students participating in FUSE who are team leads for their respective teams. Elijah Vroman, a junior Game Design major, led his team’s project, Knock-a Gnome, a virtual reality (VR) video game.
“The initial idea was a VR game where you're beating up lawn gnomes and shattering them into a million pieces. It's supposed to feel satisfying, but the idea has changed a lot. What started as just an idea involving virtual reality turned into this big project over time,” Vroman said.
The makeup of teams is balanced to ensure a broad spectrum of strengths are applied to each project. The Knock-a-Gnome team is composed of a broad group of students with wide reaching talents. “We've got three game art majors, ten game design majors, and various others who specialize in music and sound,” Vroman said. Bringing all their talents together makes for a more fleshed out finished product.
Elda Osmani, a Junior Game Design major and international student, said, “Everyone should experience FUSE at least once in their time at Bradley—either working on a project or just going to the event.”
Osmani is leading her project, The Great Strawberry Heist, which is a 2D vertical platformer built for an arcade cabinet that follows the clash of two unlikely foes. The player controls a hamster and the goal is to burrow up a multilayered birthday cake that belongs to a cat. At the top of the cake, past obstacles and the feline foe, sits the prize—a bright red strawberry. “FUSE is a lot of hard work, but it is fun and rewarding to see the results,” Osmani said.
Senior game design major Rachel Rudy led a FUSE team this year as part of her senior Capstone project. “We are working on a top-down, grid-based puzzle game that uses music as inspiration. Ultimately, it tells the story of a mother and her son and their relationship over time,” Rudy said.
Rudy, who has participated in FUSE every year since she was a freshman, said it can be intimidating at first, but she’s glad she did it. ”It is an incredible opportunity, but I fully understand how scary it is. At first team meeting they mixed cohorts. There were really experienced people who totally knew what they were doing, and here I was, a freshman who hadn't coded before,” she recalled.
Despite her concerns, she stuck with it and discovered which strengths she brings to each project. “The whole reason to do FUSE is to get that mentorship from older students. You're not supposed to know anything when you come in. This is your chance to learn with people who have done it before and make cool things,” Rudy said.
Building relationships and trying new things are consistent themes for FUSE participants. Emily Boeker, a junior Animation major and team lead, said, “It's not like you're going to be on your own because you are joining a team of people who are willing to help you.”
Boeker's project, called Orion and the Hare, is a short film about a rabbit harnessing the power of the stars to banish a supernatural hunter, inspired by the mythology surrounding the constellations of Orion and Lepus.
“I have such an incredible team, and I absolutely could not have done any of this without them,” Boeker said. “I’m proud of all of them.”
If you’re interested in attending FUSE, all of the students' projects will be showcased April 25 and 26 at the Peoria Riverfront Museum. Click here for more info.
—Lenny Liebermann, junior Sports Communications major, Journalism minor