The Game Design Future Lab at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering welcomed its inaugural associate director and slate of six partner companies set to participate in one-year residency that offers mentorship and resources for local video game developers.
The lab was created as an incubator for gaming startups in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which works with businesses that boost the city’s economy. At its first kickoff event earlier this month — hosted at the developers’ new office spaces at Tandon’s Future Labs — the game studios selected to participate presented their projects, including Starlight ReVolver, an anime-inspired action game developed by Pahdo Labs, and Shootlanzer, a shoot-em-up arcade game developed by Munity Games.
Mitu Khandaker, GDFL’s associate director and longtime NYU Game Center professor, told WSN that the program aims to help game development companies grow their businesses through tailored mentorship.
“New York City wants to really support the idea of sustainable games companies right here in the city,” Khandaker said. “It’s really cool for me because NYU gets to play this leading role in this whole ecosystem around games entrepreneurship”
Khandaker, an engineer and game designer who founded The Tiniest Shark and Glow Up Games, has been in the industry for nearly two decades. As the lab’s associate director, she will meet with companies weekly and offer mentorship drawing from her own experience. She will also oversee the advisory board and plans to secure funding for the cohorts, which are unpaid during the residency, after their program ends.
The team at Munity Games said it applied for the program because it faced challenges when pitching their debut project, Shootlanzer, due to their operations as a democratically led company. Founded in 2023, it is owned and run by its members who have a vote in all decisions regarding their studio. The team also said having the office space was an advantage since meetings were previously held on Discord and in cafes.
“We’re in the process of preparing our pitch for our potential mentors,” Shootlanzer’s project manager, Krystel Theuvenin said. “Being here, we’ve been able to go down into the game center and talk with folks down there about what it takes to make an arcade cabinet. Thankfully, we’ve had some people that kind of give us some ideas”
NYCEDC first announced its collaboration for GDFL with Tandon in 2023 and its cohort applications opened in December. GFDL is led by Future Labs, a startup incubator founded over a decade ago and initially funded by NYCEDC, as well as the organization’s NYC Media Lab.
Contact Zachary Karp at [email protected].