The competition so far…
Dare to be Digital 2009 was a great success. As well as being the internationally renowned competition’s tenth anniversary, it was also the first time all the teams had been housed in Abertay University. With teams from as far afield as Canada, China and India, the competition was tougher than ever.
The three winning teams – Pixel Pirates, Gentlemen of Fortune and The Butterflyers – are now all nominated for the exclusive BAFTA Ones to Watch award. Each year this prestigious prize is awarded to the best Dare team, giving students an Oscar of the computer games world right at the start of their career.
Two of the teams – The Butterflyers and Pixel Pirates – have also been nominated for the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards for best game!
The winning games
The Butterflyers (Jacek Wernikowski, Vykintas Kazdailis, Andrew Macdonald, Michael Cummings and Stuart Kemp) produced Shrunk!, in which the hero Winston has to stop the evil Dr Shockalot. Having been shrunk to the size of a salt shaker, Winston must use the doctor’s weapon against him – to change the size of objects to save the world.
Pixel Pirates (Faye Wright, Liam Wong, Murray Sinclair, Sean Donnelly and Nnanna Kama) produced Colour Coded, a 3D platform-puzzler where none of the objects within the world have any physical properties. Using a graphics tablet, the gamer has to change the world, for instance by making objects lighter or heavier. Only then can the game’s naïve explorers be saved.
Gentlemen of Fortune (William Wright, Lee Cresswell, Michael Doig, Jamie Mackinnon and Andrew Knight) produced Quick as Thieves, a stealth game where a master thief has to steal a valuable item from a museum vault. The thief’s bag can contain an infinite number of objects – but it grows larger and larger, giving the thief extra powers but making the risk of detection greater.
The grand prize!
The winning team will be announced at the glittering BAFTA award ceremony on Friday 19 March. We wish all the teams the very best of luck, and congratulate them again on their incredible games!
Each of the BAFTA-nominated games can be downloaded from the Dare to be Digital website.
Applications for this year’s competition are also now open, with the closing date of midnight 28 March 2010. Visit the Dare 2010 application page to apply now.
Relevant courses
All of the BAFTA-nominated teams this year were Abertay students. Some of the relevant courses we offer include:
Undergraduate
BA (Hons) Computer Arts
BA (Hons) Game Design & Production Management
BSc (Hons) Computer Games Technology
BSc (Hons) Computer Game Applications Development
Postgraduate
MSc Computer Games Technology
MA/PGDip Game Art & Animation
MProf Games Development
*Courses under development and subject to approval