Gravitrix

“Extreme Sports, Reimagined Digitally”

Project Title: Gravitrix
Team Members: Feng-Yi Lin, Rushil Sojitra, Taiyu Zhu, Tianyi Lin, Jesse Sae Xu, Bella Liu
Faculty Advisor: Jonathan Walton, Ricardo Washington

The Idea

XPogo, the world’s leading organization for extreme pogo athletics, wanted to inspire new audiences to discover the unique thrill of freestyle pogo — a sport combining acrobatics, momentum, and gravity-defying stunts. But how do you translate a high-intensity physical experience into a virtual one?

That was the question Team Gravitrix faced. The ETC students were tasked with creating a PC game that captured the energy and expressiveness of pogo sports — all while remaining approachable and fun for players with no real-world pogo experience.

Taking inspiration from both arcade-style platformers and extreme sports culture, the team aimed to create a game that wasn’t just about bouncing around, instead showing off the style, momentum, and playful mastery of physics involved in extreme sports. Their goal: introduce people to the creative, adrenaline-fueled world of pogo in the safety of their own home.

The Process

The semester began with research: watching hours of pogo tricks, talking to XPogo performers, and extensive prototyping in Unreal Engine. The team’s first goal was to develop a movement system that felt tight, reactive, and satisfying — a physics-driven control system that rewarded timing and creativity.

They also paid careful attention to the game’s level design, planning how each level taught the player something new about the control system and further immersed them in the game’s cyberpunk-inspired world. The team leaned into verticality, designing city-inspired environments that encouraged exploration and, most importantly, getting air.

Each week, they added new layers to it: boost jumps, double jumps, hidden coins and collectibles, and a trick-based scoring system. As player abilities grew, so did the level of complexity.

Throughout development, the team hosted weekly playtests to fine-tune difficulty and responsiveness. One key discovery: players loved improvising. In response, the team shifted away from strict level goals toward open-ended “Style Run” and “Free Bounce” modes, where players could discover new tricks and routes.

Late in the semester, the team also added a replay and scoring system that allowed players to share clips and compete asynchronously — expanding the game’s reach and replayability.

The Impact

Gravitrix delivered a stylish, joyful experience that combined the spectacle of extreme sports with the satisfying mastery of physics-based platformers. Its tight controls, dynamic camera, and expressive motion system earned praise during ETC playthroughs and final presentations.

The project also sparked real-world momentum. XPogo expressed strong interest in further collaboration, and discussions began about using the game as an educational and promotional tool for youth outreach programs.

Most importantly, the game succeeded in its original goal: introducing players to a sport they may never have seen before — and making them want to bounce. Now, the team is working on rolling the game out onto the market — including demoing the game at 2025’s Pogopalooza to an audience of pogo enthusiasts.