University students from across Quebec were gaming for a good cause on Friday as they took part in the annual Ubisoft Game Lab competition.

While Ubisoft might be famous for often violent games like the Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry series, the games the students were working on were designed with a very different purpose in mind. The them of this year’s Game Lab was to raise awareness of social causes.

Ali El-Hage, a student at McGill University, said his team’s game ‘Food Without Borders’ is like a take on the Robin Hood story but with a food twist.

“In our game, we play as a robot from the manufacturer, the warehouse actually, that has been hacked into by an organization that seeks to take the food that’s about to be wasted by force and give it to people in need,” he said. “I think everyone can relate to it and sometimes we tend to forget it because we don’t see the direct impacts of the problem, the issue of overproduction.”

This year is the eight edition of Game Lob, which sees 17 teams paired with mentors from the company. The students build prototypes of games that are then shown to judges.

“Today, we get to actually play the games to get a taste of all the hard work they’ve been putting in,” said Ubisoft lead programmer Julien Desaulniers.

The games presented on Friday touched on everything from mental health to climate change to water management.

“I strongly believe that this shows what we can do with the medium of video games, how far it can go, how far it can truly change the world,” said Ubisoft’s Fabrice Giguere.

Winners walk away with thousands of dollars in prizes.

“At the end of the day, it’s the level of engagement I have with the game,” said Desaulniers. “It’s the fun I have playing it and the hunger I have to keep playing it.”

Concordia’s team built a game based around Alzheimer’s Disease and the importance of family.

“Spending time with your grandparents, spending time with your family and the kind of joy of being able to share these moments together,” said Concordia student Wesley Lord. “How, by doing that, you can help each other out.”

The prizes aren’t the only reward: participants also hope to make an impression on a potential future employer.

“I’m dead set on becoming a game programmer, that’s all I’m looking into,” said El-Hage.