Computer games developed by some of the brightest young talent in the business can now be downloaded for anyone to try.
Games developed at this year’s Dare to be Digital competition are available from today on the competition’s website: Dare to be Digital.
They include the three winning games which now go forward as the sole nominees for the Ones to Watch award in the Bafta Video Games Awards, due to be announced next March.
The Dare contestants’ games were showcased live at Dare ProtoPlay this summer as part of the Edinburgh Fringe programmes. Thousands of festival-goers tested the games and voted for their favourites ahead of the Dare to be Digital Awards announced in August.
Dare to be Digital is now taking Dare ProtoPlay to the London Games Festival on 28-29 October. The upcoming two-day event at Old Spitalfields Market will give Londoners and visitors the opportunity to play the games live.
Dare to be Digital is the world’s leading games design competition for university students, organized and promoted by the University of Abertay Dundee, in association with Channel 4.
About 100 teams applied to enter this year’s competition, from which 17 teams of five programmers and artists were selected to compete in five locations across Britain and Ireland.
The 17 games have already had one public outing, at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival held as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.
The three winning teams and BAFTA nominees are: Blue Skies (Abertay University) for their game ‘Origamee’, Ctrl_D (Peking University) for ‘VegeMe’ and DarkMatter Designs (Wolverhampton University) for ‘Boro-Toro’. As well as the BAFTA nomination, each team took home £2,500.
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NOTES FOR EDITORS
Dare to be Digital is a competition open to students from universities and art colleges and is promoted by the University of Abertay Dundee, which runs the competition in partnership with Scottish Enterprise Tayside and Dundee City Council.
Host centres for Dare to be Digital 2008: Dundee, Birmingham, Brighton, London and Dublin. In each centre, teams have had access to desk-space and computer equipment, and received financial support and weekly training sessions from industry specialists throughout the 10-week competition.
Universities represented in the Dare 2008 teams: Abertay, Brunel, Birmingham, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Edinburgh, Image college of Arts, Animation & Technology at Chennai, London Metropolitan, Napier, Westminster, London South Bank, Beijing, Portsmouth, Norwich School of Art and Design, Ulster, and Wolverhampton.
Broadcast sponsors: Channel 4 (lead sponsors), BBC, Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc.
Public agency support: London Development Agency, Screen West Midlands / Advantage West Midlands, Scottish Enterprise Tayside, Scottish Government, SEEDA, Belfast City Council, The Digital Hub, Intertrade Ireland, Department of Education and Science Ireland, IDA Ireland, Dundee City Council.
Technology and software providers: Autodesk, Microsoft, Philips amBX, Pufferfish, Nokia.
Game developer and publisher community supporters: Activision / DemonWare, Blitz, Bizarre Creations, Codemasters, Cohort, Denki, Eidos, Genuine Games, Microsoft, NCR, NCsoft , Proper Games, Rare, Realtime Worlds, Rockstar North, Sega, Sports Interactive, Zoe Mode.
All of the above companies have supported the teams through judging or mentoring, visits etc in some way
The BAFTA video game awards will be held on Tuesday March 10 2009. For more details please see www.bafta.org/awards/video-games/
For more information and to download the games, visit: www.daretobedigital.com
For more information on the London Games Festival, visit: www.londongamesfestival.com
Media enquiries: Vicki White on 07837 250584 or 01382 308935
e-mail v.white@abertay.ac.uk