UCLA Game Lab

Making strange, personal, and unconventional games is always possible - but sustaining that work financially is harder than most developers expect. This talk explored the real tradeoffs behind funding, developing, and publishing artistic games for a commercial audience.

Thank you to Alyssa Kollgaard, COO of @akuparagames (Cryptmaster, Sorry We're Closed, The Darkside Detective, Rain World) and founder of Publisher Pathfinder, for sharing insights with us in her talk Weird Games, Real Money: Creating Experimental Work in a Commercial World.

Enrollment is now open for the UCLA Game Lab Summer Institute! A 3-week program for high school students exploring game-making as an artistic practice. Learn game design, animation, worldbuilding, and programming. Online or on campus sessions🕹️si.games.ucla.edu

LAYERS UPON LAYERS: A @ucla_dma Mid Residency Exhibition by Aidan Strong @str0nkyk0ng. Disjointed fragments and particulates from eroded forms, each holding only partial memory of its origin, gathered and molded into something new. ⏳👾🏜️

A look at Stone Mill Grinder🎠: A @UCLA_DMA Mid Residency Exhibition by Elliot Bear Yu ⌨️ Uncover a strange new lexicon in this eccentric, typing-based, rougelike game.

Award-winning multidisciplinary artist and game designer Shing Yin Khor @sawdustbear visited the UCLA Game Lab and led a keepsake games workshop. We prototyped short keepsake games that ask players to become makers, crafting a tangible narrative object as they play.

Tomorrow: Experience LAYERS UPON LAYERS: A @UCLA_DMA Mid Residency Exhibition by Aidan Strong

My mid-residency show LAYERS UPON LAYERS, opens in two weeks! Through decimation, and recreation, players create towering spires across a simulated landscape. Strata lines formed from memory, unfaltering spires built on the ruins of the last 🪏 dma.ucla.edu/events/layers-…

An eroded item loses its singularity. It leaves a collection of loose fragments and particulates, with each piece only holding partial memories of its beginning. What do we see in the collections of these particles?

💌You're invited to: 🌌LAYERS UPON LAYERS: A @UCLA_DMA Mid Residency Exhibition by Aidan Strong @Str0nkyK0ng ✨OPENING RECEPTION: February 10, 2026 5:30PM–8:30PM Broad Art Center, EDA (Room 1250) 240 Charles E. Young Dr.

You’re invited to Stone Mill Grinder🎠: A @ucla_dma Mid Residency Exhibition for Elliot Bear Yu ⌨️ Uncover a strange new lexicon in this eccentric, typing-based, rougelike game. 🕹️ Opening: Tuesday, 01.20.26 5:30 – 8:30 PM Location: EDA Graduate Gallery UCLA Broad Art Center

You are invited to the @ucla_dma Undergraduate Winter Exhibition 2026: ACID REFLUX ⚡️An exhibition exploring cycles of destruction, rebirth + transformation in an era of ecological and technological upheaval. 🗓 Opening: Jan 15, 5–8pm 📍 New Wight Gallery, Broad Art Center, UCLA

Applications are open for UCLA’s MFA in Design Media Arts. A rigorous 3-year program exploring media, technology, and games with world-renowned faculty, funding opportunities, 24/7 studio access, and fabrication labs. Deadline Jan 4, 2026. Learn more: mfa.dma.ucla.edu

Apply today to the UCLA Design Media Arts MFA, home to the UCLA Game Lab. A space for artists and game makers pushing new forms, systems, and ways of thinking through games. Deadline: Jan 4, 2026 🎮 dma.ucla.edu/programs/mfa

Applications are now open for the UCLA Design Media Arts MFA, home to the UCLA Game Lab. A space for artists and game makers working across disciplines to explore new forms and ways of thinking through games. Deadline: Jan 4, 2026 Apply: mfa.dma.ucla.edu 🎮

October 23rd is the last day to see UNCOMMON INGRESS, an exhibit by the UCLA Design Media Arts MFA 2026 cohort, at the New Wight Gallery from 10am-5pm! Address: New Wight Gallery, Broad Art Center 240 Charles E Young Drive North Los Angeles, CA 90095 uncommoningress.cargo.site

Come out tonight! ✨ uncommoningress.cargo.site

Come out to the opening of UNCOMMON INGRESS tomorrow, Oct. 16th from 5pm to 8pm at the New Wight Gallery! Address: New Wight Gallery, Broad Art Center 240 Charles E Young Drive North Los Angeles, CA 90095-1456 For more info visit: uncommoningress.cargo.site

The Game Lab’s own David O’Grady shares his expertise on the evolution of joysticks in Episode 2: “Stick It to ’Em,” from Hidden Levels on @WBUR, a new podcast series by @Endless_Thread and @99piorg exploring how video games have reshaped our world. wbur.org/endlessthread/…