Project Mentor: Professor Michael Spear, Computer Science and Engineering
2025 Impact Fellows:
Hamza Al Farsi '28
Karina Makhani '26
Ishmum Zaman '28
Project Description:
How can gamifying the college experience help with student preparedness, belonging, and wellbeing?
The "Leveling Up to Lehigh Life" project combines computer science, graphic design, music, storytelling, and marketing to create a casual 2-D game to help new students of all backgrounds adapt to life at Lehigh University. The experience of being a first-year student represents a significant change in social norms, complete with strange vocabulary; unfamiliar social customs; a set of complex, implicit rules for how to interact with professors in person and electronically; and many situations in which small pieces of information, passed mostly by word of mouth, can have a huge impact on academic and social success. Through interactive quests, conversations, and campus exploration, LUTLL familiarizes players with these nuances before they even arrive on campus. The game introduces essential aspects of Lehigh life, from navigating dining halls and academic resources to building community and maintaining well-being, all within an engaging, narrative-driven environment.
The project goals for 2026 are to put the finishing touches on the first version of the game, work with the Office of the First Year Experience to launch the game for all incoming members of the Class of 2030 in June, and begin planning and implementing new features (such as a multiplayer "find-a-roommate" mode) for the second version. In addition to the development and deployment work, the spring and fall will involve experiment design and data collection/analysis to determine how the game helps students adjust to life at Lehigh. Students from all backgrounds will find opportunities to contribute to the design, implementation, and evaluation portions of the project.