For 10 years, the USC Games Expo has quietly served as one of the industry’s premier launchpads for emerging indie game developers. Long before games like Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch and Threes! Earned critical acclaim and reshaped conversations around interactive storytelling, their creators walked the halls of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts’ Interactive Media & Games Division, experimenting with ideas that would eventually influence the medium.
This year’s annual showcase offered a similar view into what could be next. Held each spring, the USC Games Expo exhibits a variety of student work where visitors can play everything from digital and tabletop games to themed entertainment installations, while the student creative directors watch real players interacting with their creations in a first. “In layman’s terms, the USC Games Expo is the largest academic games showcase in the world,”Jim Huntley informed Deadline after this year’s event, which took place in May.
Huntley serves as an associate professor of Interactive Media & Games and head of marketing for USC Games. “We’ve been doing it for a little over 10 years now, and it’s been getting bigger and bigger each time.” The event isn’t limited exclusively to students within USC Games.
Any currently enrolled USC student who has created a game can submit their project for consideration, making the Expo a broad celebration of interactive storytelling across the university. But the centerpiece remains the Advanced Games Project (AGP), the program’s capstone course, where multidisciplinary teams spend three semesters building an original game from concept to playable demo. Students spend roughly 18 months moving from an initial pitch to a finished project, working as small studios of around 30 collaborators before unveiling their games to the public at the Expo.
That extended development period, Huntley stated, has become increasingly important. USC Games recently added a semester devoted to pre-production, giving students more time to refine ideas before full production kicks off. “We value pre-production so much,”he added, allowing teams to better understand what they’re making before the larger production effort starts.
That emphasis on preparation mirrors how the program progresses alongside an industry in constant motion. Instead, the goal is to distinguish between short-lived industry buzz and lasting shifts worth incorporating into the curriculum. Artificial Intelligence is one example.
Rather than teaching students to rely on AI-generated work, Huntley stated the program focuses on the foundational creative and technical skills first, treating AI as a tool instead of a substitute for their game development. “We do want to make sure that the students know how to script and code and write and design by hand, so that they’re not relying on the tool as a crutch,”he stated. “It’s awesome to see the raw creativity that our students bring to bear.
[The program is very] blue sky: what do you want to make? This is where they can make that dream happen, and it’s fun seeing what kind of dreams they have.” And this year’s showcase reflects exactly that spirit.
Here with Deadline, three creative directors that preside over Aftertaste, Sisyphus’s Worst Day (Again) and Unrealtor talk about being emerging developers that embrace quirky narratives, inventive puzzle designs and liminal worlds that reward curiosity. Name: Baozee Age: 22 Hometown: Hefei, China Aftertaste is a surreal narrative platformer that follows Tammy, a sentient tongue, exploring the body of an overworked chef who has fell short of her passion for cooking. Inspired by Chinese medicine, creator Baozee transforms the body’s organs into emotional landscapes, blending quirky visuals with a heartfelt story about burnout, healing and rediscovering creativity.
BAOZEE: Aftertaste is a 2D side-scrolling platformer where you play as a tongue named Tami. Tami is helping an overworked chef named Keh, who has experienced burnout and fell short of her sense of taste. So, her [anthropomorphic] tongue goes inside her body to explore the reason behind that.
It’s a story about recovering her sense of taste and reclaiming her memories and fell short of passion. It’s a narrative adventure game. DEADLINE: When I watched the gameplay trailer, I thought,“What a unique idea for a game,”but then I also thought.
“Oh my god, this is making me squeamish.” How did you come up with the idea of making the main character a tongue? BAOZEE: It started last year when I was learning about Chinese medicine while taking a stress management class.
We talked a lot about how emotions relate to sensations like taste. In Chinese medicine, different tastes relate to different emotions and different organs. That became a massive inspiration for my game.
We also always forget about our tongue. It’s one of the most remarkable muscles in the human body, so I thought,“Why not make a game about it?” That’s when I came up with the story for Aftertaste.
DEADLINE: Were you worried about how people would react to a tongue walking around? BAOZEE: Yeah. During the AGP program at USC Games, when I got my first round of feedback, a lot of people didn’t enjoy it.
They didn’t think it was very appealing because they couldn’t picture what it would look like. But other people liked it because it was a combination of weird and cute. DEADLINE: What was it like receiving that kind of feedback?
Was it your first time getting direct responses to something you created? BAOZEE: Yeah, it was my first time, especially receiving feedback from professionals and from a wide range of people at the school and from different industries. During our second round, we had to present the game to all of them.
It was a major step for me. The director of Sisyphus’s Worst Day (Again) and I were the only sophomore students leading projects, so it was challenging, but we learned a lot from it. DEADLINE: What was the most challenging part of putting the game together?
BAOZEE: Recruitment. Our team consisted of students from different schools across USC, and some of them didn’t have experience making games. In a professional studio, people are paid to work on a project.
At school, each team has around 50 to 60 people, so it was hard to connect with everyone and figure out whether they genuinely enjoyed the game or were just there to earn class credit. That was the biggest challenge. So, I trusted my friends a lot.
The design lead was my roommate, and the art director was a very good friend of mine. I trusted them, and I think friendship, love and care can build beautiful things. DEADLINE: What was the most rewarding part of sticking to your guns and making the game?
BAOZEE: Seeing the trailer come out and seeing everyone at the Expo cheering for the work we’d done. We also really appreciated that we created such a cute and beautiful character. We made a lot of merchandise.
That was one of the biggest gifts from my team and from the game. BAOZEE: Definitely Super Mario Odyssey. It’s a game about transformation, different abilities and tactile interactions, and Aftertaste fits within that genre.
I’d also say the movie Inside Out because of the way it personifies organs and emotions. BAOZEE: What Remains of Edith Finch. It was also made by a former USC Games student.
We don’t usually see games with such deep and serious themes. That was the game that inspired me to study game development in college. BAOZEE: I’d like to be a freelance game developer.
I have a lot of hobbies, and I’m also learning anatomy, but I’ve always sought to make games, especially a good indie game with a small team. What kicked off as Jason Lin’s fascination with loops evolved into a clever reimagining of Greek mythology. Sisyphus’s Worst Day Ever is a 3D puzzle game that challenges players to engineer elaborate contraptions to keep Sisyphus trapped in an endless cycle, blending dark humor, inventive puzzle design, and a playful twist on an age-old tale.
DEADLINE: Why Sisyphus? His story seems perfect for a game, but how did you land on that idea? LIN: I initially sought to make a game about loops or cycles.
I started exploring mechanics where players would reverse-engineer AI by preventing it from reaching its goal. But I realized that premise wasn’t very interesting on its own. I sought a narrative that players would connect with, so I turned to Greek mythology, which I’ve always been interested in.
The myth of Sisyphus fit perfectly, so I created my own interpretation of it to serve the game. DEADLINE: What was the most challenging part of making the game? LIN: In the beginning, we had to design the game while also leading a large team that didn’t really know what the game was until we built the first demo.
Our design lead had to create levels while believing they would eventually work, and at the same time assign work to teammates even though none of us knew for certain how everything would come together. That challenge extended across the whole team. Everyone had to believe in the vision before they could fully see it.
Building that confidence was probably the hardest part. DEADLINE: What was the most rewarding part of making the game? LIN: Seeing people play it.
The first time we really believed the game was fun was after we built our demo last December. Watching play-testers solve the puzzles and hearing them say,“Oh my God, these puzzles are really interesting,”was incredibly rewarding. Showcasing the game at the USC Games Expo was also another highlight.
We finally got to show the game to the public, watch people interact with it, and hear their reactions. We also had a lot of fun making merchandise and creating an experience around the game. The atmosphere at the Expo was great.
LIN: There are two main inspirations. From a narrative perspective, Hades and Hades II were major influences. They blend ancient Greek mythology with a modern game genre, and we took inspiration from their art style, including the axonometric perspective and character design.
From a gameplay perspective, we looked at traditional Sokoban-style puzzle games. We also drew inspiration from Order of the Sinking Star. Its puzzle design and visual style were very close to what we sought to create.
Inspired by Ariel Sol’s frustrations with apartment hunting in Los Angeles, Unrealtor transforms an ordinary house tour into a surreal co-op puzzle adventure. Players navigate impossible architecture and perspective-bending puzzles as reality twists around them. Drawing inspiration from Superliminal, Sol blends optical illusions with an uncanny, dreamlike atmosphere that turns a familiar experience into an inventive mystery.
SOL: Unrealtor is a local co-op game where two people play together on the couch. You and a friend are touring an apartment you’re thinking about renting, but the house tour turns into a surreal labyrinth, and you have to escape while the landlord keeps trying to sell it to you. It’s a puzzle game, and our main mechanic relies on perspective.
You look at objects from certain angles to create a 2D image across the split screen. DEADLINE: How long were you at USC, and how long did it take to make the game? SOL: The master’s program is two years, and the development cycle for Unrealtor was one year through the Advanced Games Project.
Projects are greenlit in the fall, and from then until the next USC Games Expo, it’s all ideation and development. SOL: There were two starting points. The first was the mechanic.
I was really interested in optical illusions and the relationship between 3D and 2D space. But I also sought a narrative because I think a game without a story is more like a toy. At the same time, I was moving around Los Angeles and thinking about all the truly terrible apartments I’d toured.
I’d ask, while seeing these small places, like,“Where do I even fit a bed?” and someone would tell me,“Just put it diagonally.” Without the real-life stress, apartment hunting almost becomes a game just trying to figure out the layout.
That’s when I realized those ideas could fit together. SOL: Interdisciplinary communication. I’m really proud of my team because I brought them an idea that was already difficult for me to explain.
If it’s difficult for the director, it’s even harder to communicate to everyone else. The biggest challenge was combining design and art. Normally, designers figure out the mechanics and artists make them look great.
But because our core mechanic relied on visual alignment in a 3D space, art had to be involved in the design process, and designers had to weigh in on the visuals. It took time to figure out that communication pipeline. SOL: At first, we held separate meetings with the designers and artists.
Eventually, it became much easier to bring everyone together in one room and ask,“What do you need from each other?” That streamlined the whole process. DEADLINE: What was the most rewarding part of making Unrealtor?
SOL: Playtesting. Especially with a puzzle game, there’s nothing better than watching someone have that“Aha”moment when they suddenly understand what they’re supposed to do. When you’re designing the puzzles, you already know the solutions, so you’re estimating where that realization will happen.
Seeing players actually reach that moment is incredibly satisfying. DEADLINE: What games inspired Unrealtor, or inspire you as a developer? SOL: Superliminal was probably our biggest reference because it also uses unconventional puzzle mechanics.
We also looked at Blueprints and Monument Valley. Personally, the game that really changed how I think about games was Journey. It made me realize games could be art.
It’s such a clean, experiential game with a beautiful story arc, and that’s something I’ve carried with me ever since.