ISSUE 42 | May 2025Exploring the intersection of creativity and technology...
Issue 42 of The Nouspace Student Research Gallery showcases the exceptional range and talent of DTC students at WSU Vancouver, with projects that explore the creative and technical possibilities of code, storytelling, interactivity, and digital aesthetics. From immersive educational platforms to innovative browser games and AI-generated cinema, this issue highlights student work that reflects a deep engagement with both digital tools and cultural questions.
Featured in this issue are the interacture tour with 3D immersive video in the senior seminar project, SciVite. An interactive map of Washington’s wild spaces, which invite users to explore science and ecology through layered visuals and intuitive interfaces. Projects like Tech Support and The Keyboard & The Mouse demonstrate how narrative, humor, and interface design can be brought together in surprising ways. Game design shines in Cowardly Blocks, Kiwi’s Garden, and Guess the Country—each offering unique mechanics and visual styles that challenge and entertain.
This issue also includes a new selection of animated event posters and AI-enhanced videos, expanding how students approach motion graphics and cinematic experimentation. Whether generating art algorithmically, remixing YouTube aesthetics, or inventing alternate desktop realities, each project affirms the capacity of our students to think critically and imaginatively across platforms and disciplines.
SciVite is a virtual interactive tour experience created by the Digital Technology and Culture program at WSU Vancouver. It allows users to explore the new Life Sciences building through 360° virtual rooms, an interactive 3D lab model, a short documentary, and a timeline of the building’s creation. The site highlights cutting-edge labs, features student and faculty stories, and provides information on degree programs in the life sciences.
Tech Support
Joel Waite
DTC 477 Advanced Web Design and Development / Prof. Will Luers
Tech Support is an interactive narrative set in a retro desktop simulation where you play an IT helpdesk agent assisting a sweet, caps-lock-prone grandmother named Betty. As you navigate her glitching computer, uncover family photos, recipes, and cat files, and battle increasingly absurd malware through mini-games, a humorous and heartfelt story unfolds about connection, memory, and digital chaos.
Kiwi’s Garden
Gianella Singhose
DTC 477 Advanced Web Design and Development / Prof. Will Luers
Kiwi’s Garden is a whimsical, arcade-style browser game where players tend a digital garden by watering plants, growing crops, and fending off mischievous crows. Designed with retro aesthetics and pixelated charm, the game features a customizable start screen, intuitive keyboard controls, and escalating difficulty based on the player’s chosen settings. Players must fill their watering can from a water source, nurture plants before they wither, and repeatedly press ‘E’ to scare off hungry crows. With a built-in timer, score tracking, animated sprites, and interactive game loops, Kiwi’s Garden blends time management and reflex-based mechanics into a fast-paced farming mini-game.
Cowardly Blocks
Tristan Mattole
DTC 477 Advanced Web Design and Development / Prof. Will Luers
Cowardly Blocks is a fast-paced, two-phase strategy game that blends real-time unit control, resource collection, and survival mechanics. Players start with a single block and must gather additional units by collecting power-ups while navigating maze-like walls. During timed collection phases, players strategically select and move units, break walls, and optimize their layout to maximize their squad. In the escalating dodge phases, falling projectiles threaten to destroy units, and players must decide whether to risk putting units on cooldown to delete incoming threats using a shift-drag mechanic. With responsive controls, animated UI pop-ups, sound effects, and dynamic difficulty scaling, Cowardly Blocks challenges players to balance offense, defense, and tactical sacrifice in an elegant cycle of growth and survival.
Generative Art Gallery
Joel Hammersley
DTC 477 Advanced Web Design and Development / Prof. Will Luers
Generative Art Gallery is a dynamic web-based exhibition and interactive canvas that showcases algorithmically generated visuals across categories like spiral galaxies, maze grids, turbulent flows, warped illusions, and organic packing. Each artwork is created using custom p5.js sketches and organized in a sleek, dark-themed UI with modal viewing, animated backgrounds via Vanta.js, and smooth tab-based navigation. Visitors can explore curated image sets or use the built-in generator to create unique pieces in real time, adjusting patterns on the fly. The project blends code-driven creativity, mathematical aesthetics, and responsive design into an immersive digital art experience.
Pin the Place
Angelina Dobrolezha
DTC 477 Advanced Web Design and Development / Prof. Will Luers
Pin the Place is a browser-based geographic guessing game inspired by GeoGuessr, where players view an image of a famous landmark and try to guess its location by clicking on an interactive Mapbox globe. Each round presents a new image from a curated set of 30 global landmarks, and players are scored based on how close their guess is to the actual coordinates. A line visually connects the guessed point and the correct location, and a brief fun fact is revealed with the answer. Designed with a clean UI and responsive map interactions, the game resets each round and tracks performance through progressive challenges, offering an educational and engaging way to explore the world.
Guess the Country
Graci Vandervort
DTC 477 Advanced Web Design and Development / Prof. Will Luers
Guess the Country is an interactive geography game built with Mapbox GL JS that challenges players to identify countries based on their highlighted polygon outlines rather than pins. Each round zooms into a new country and displays four name options—one correct and three distractors—requiring the player to make an informed choice. A custom modal replaces default alerts to provide feedback when a guess is incorrect, resetting the game and displaying the correct answer. The game tracks score and high score locally, visually highlighting a new high score with a temporary animated indicator. The map’s color scheme, UI layout, and button interactions have been refined for clarity and responsiveness, with over 90 countries included in the randomized quiz pool. The player can also recenter the map view for better context before submitting an answer.
A Glimpse Into Washington's Wild: Exploring Its Diverse Ecosystems
Xanthia Bullis
DTC 477 Advanced Web Design and Development / Prof. Will Luers
A Glimpse Into Washington's Wild: Exploring Its Diverse Ecosystems is an interactive web-based map built with Mapbox GL JS that visualizes the diverse ecological regions of Washington State through clickable markers and animated polygon layers. Each ecosystem—ranging from alpine forests to shrub-steppe prairies—is represented by a custom-styled marker that reveals detailed information in an info box, including descriptions, endangered and native species, and a cycling gallery of images. The project features modularized code, responsive design, and an expandable works cited section, all aimed at creating an informative, immersive, and mobile-friendly educational tool. All data and styling are externalized into dedicated JavaScript and CSS files, enhancing scalability and maintainability. AI tools supported the development process, but the content, design, and interactivity reflect the creator’s own vision and research.
The Keyboard & The Mouse
Rylan Eisenhauer
DTC 491 Advanced Digital Cinema / Will Luers
My second attempt at a choose your own adventure work. This one dives into non vocal storytelling in using written words, movements, and music to convey tone and interactions through the abilities of The Keyboard (a serious yet kind hearted piece of technology) and The Mouse (a playful and curiosity driven device).
growing up
Victoria Clark
DTC 491 Advanced Digital Cinema / Will Luers
Created through generative AI, ‘growing up’ explores the life-altering process of growing older, especially for feminine people. As people grow older, we often idealize what adulthood might bring and what adventures we may find. However, adulthood often comes with unseen and unspoken difficulties that can make you wonder – is this all there really is? Can life be as innocent as it once was? Is how other people see you who you really are?
Overall, this piece was created to tackle many uncomfortable truths of growing older in the modern era – the fear of the unknown, the dread of major changes, and the inevitable future that keeps marching on, whether we like it or not.
AI Cinema
Neely Ellis
DTC 491 Advanced Digital Cinema / Will Luers
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Who Participates in the Arts? A Metro Area Comparison of Age, Education, and Sexual Orientation
This research-based presentation analyzes data from the U.S. Census Bureau to explore how factors like age, education level, and sexual orientation affect participation in the arts across Detroit, San Francisco, and Seattle. Through a series of data visualizations, the project reveals regional disparities and suggests that lifestyle, identity, and targeted programming all influence engagement with the arts.
Marble & Ink
Zoe Thompson
DTC 336 Multimedia Design / Prof Chris Dreger
Assignment was to create a poster for a multi-act, multi-day event, and then to animate that static poster for a compelling digital animated poster to promote that event.
Groovy Nights
Kevin Le
DTC 336 Multimedia Design / Prof Chris Dreger
Assignment was to create a poster for a multi-act, multi-day event, and then to animate that static poster for a compelling digital animated poster to promote that event.
Baja Beach Fest
Martha Rodriguez
DTC 336 Multimedia Design / Prof Chris Dreger
Assignment was to create a poster for a multi-act, multi-day event, and then to animate that static poster for a compelling digital animated poster to promote that event.
Rose City Comic Con
Zavien Houston
DTC 336 Multimedia Design / Prof Chris Dreger
Assignment was to create a poster for a multi-act, multi-day event, and then to animate that static poster for a compelling digital animated poster to promote that event.
Intergalactic Scienc Fiction Convention
Joshua Prather
DTC 336 Multimedia Design / Prof Chris Dreger
Assignment was to create a poster for a multi-act, multi-day event, and then to animate that static poster for a compelling digital animated poster to promote that event.
