Pause carousel
Play carousel
A panel of judges from leading video games studios in the UK and abroad will decide the winners of Abertay University’s Dare Academy game design competition during a live final at V&A Dundee Museum of Design.
Six teams of Abertay student games designers will unveil their prototypes at the exclusive, in-person event on Monday 13 September, with experts from some of the country’s very best studios running the rule over creative and technically-complex games created across weeks of summer hot-housing.
Games to have made this year’s final include an adventure platformer, an exercise game, a sci-fi puzzler, a queer story-focused road-trip game, a single player stealth-action rhythm game and a mini open world island adventure.
All of the finalists have received mentorship from industry professionals and start-up advice from sponsors over the course of the competition, which seeks to recreate the challenges of an industry environment.
The teams will present their games to an impressive judging panel, which includes:
- Stephanie Bazeley, Senior Programmer at Dundee-based studio Junkfish, the team behind the award-winning Monstrum and Monstrum II
- Richard Jolly, CEO of Splash Damage, the studio behind several games in the Gears of War franchise, as well as Outcasters and Halo: MCC
- Jess Hider, Senior Technical Designer at Rare, creators of Sea of Thieves and Everwild
- Michael Barclay, Principal Designer at Naughty Dog, creators of international hits The Last of Us, The Last of Us Part II and Crash Bandicoot
- Shuvojit Pal, Concept Artist at Mediatonic, the studio behind the hit game, Fall Guys
- Kirsty Keatch, Game Developer at Ustwo Games, creators of both Monument Valley and Monument Valley 2
- Alastair Brown, Senior Level Designer at Rebellion, one of Europe's biggest independent multimedia studios and creators of the Sniper Elite and Zombie Army series
- Lynda Clarke, a Research Fellow at R&D hub InGAME (Innovation for Games and Media Enterprise), based in the Vision Building in Dundee
Dare Academy has a strong track record of producing critically and commercially successful games, with many of the competition’s previous participants going on to create start-ups or seeing their games picked up by for major release.
Dr Dayna Galloway, Head of the Division of Games and Arts at Abertay, said:
We’re delighted that this year’s Dare teams are able to experience the final at V&A Dundee. After the challenges of working almost entirely remotely, we look forward to safely celebrating the achievements of all the teams, and I’d like to thank all of our industry mentors, judges and sponsors who’ve made Dare Academy 2021 possible.
Jess Hider, an Abertay graduate and previous Dare competitor said:
I’ve been a long-term supporter of Dare and always enjoy seeing the talent and innovation in the games produced. Given the year that we’ve had, every team should be incredibly proud of what they’ve achieved. Making games is hard at the best of times, to do so in the current situation is extraordinary.
Alastair Brown said:
2019 was my first experience of judging Dare Academy and I was blown away by what was produced by the students – I expect this year will be no different. I’ve kept my eye on the competition ever since I came across the Dare Academy stand at the EGX games expo, so I’m excited to see how this year’s teams do in the final and beyond.
Dare Academy is sponsored by Dell UK, Henderson Loggie and Lindsays, with the winning team in line to take home a cash prize of £5,000 and a package of development worth £15,000 from InGAME.
Dare Academy 2021 Judges:
Lynda Clark
Lynda is a novelist and maker of interactive fiction. She has a PhD in creative writing which focused on relationships between the creators and audiences of serialised novels and episodic videogames. She’s currently Research & Development Fellow in Narrative & Play at InGAME where she’s working on tools and processes for writers interested in using AI and text generation. Prior to joining InGAME, she was a writer and producer in the videogame industry, developing content for MMO minigames. Her debut short story collection, Dreaming in Quantum is out now with Fairlight Books and contains several stories inspired by videogames and videogame culture.
Stephanie Bazeley
Stephanie is a senior programmer at Team Junkfish who has been programming professionally for games for 8 years. Her games are available around the world, have been nominated for several awards including a Scottish BAFTA, and are playable across many platforms like the Nintendo Switch/PS4 and PC.
Shuvojit Pal
Shuvojit has had the pleasure of working on vibrant and quirky worlds (turns out quirky is a skillset), having had the experience behind the curtain being mentored at Axis, interning at Rare and now working at Mediatonic on Fall Guys. The knowledge Shuvo has gathered is something that he wants to share. Being an Abertay graduate himself, the opportunity to be a judge for Dare Academy gives him immense pride and he looks forward to experiencing the new and exciting worlds the teams have created.
Jess Hider
Jess is currently building out unique and unforgettable experiences in the magical world of Everwild as a Senior Technical Designer at Rare. Having been a participant, mentor, and judge, she's a long-term supporter of Dare, knowing first-hand how much of a boost it can give to getting a career in the games industry.
Kirsty Keatch
Kirsty is a creative technologist who has been working at ustwo games for the past three years. She has worked on interaction design for their VR title Lands End as well as concept development and programming of their latest release, Alba a Wildlife Adventure, which won an Apple Design Award for its Social Impact. Her creative practice explores the design of playful, unexpected and approachable interactive sound and games systems, ranging from VR dancing games to large scale kinetic sound sculptures and social media face filters. Her pieces have been played at the National Museum of Scotland and the V&A Museums in London and Dundee.
Alastair Brown
Alastair has worked at Rebellion for 7 years now, 2 of those as QA staff before moving departments in 2016 to work as a level designer on Strange Brigade, then on Zombie Army 4: Dead War. Currently working on the next Sniper Elite game as a Senior Level Designer. A former Dare participant from the 2012 Academy, he is really looking forward to seeing what this year’s teams have created.
Michael Barclay
Michael is a Principal Designer at Naughty Dog in Santa Monica, California. After graduating from Abertay's Computer Games Technology course in 2007 Michael has gone on to work on several AAA franchises such as Crysis, Uncharted and The Last of Us. Originally from Dundee, Michael has been involved in several DARE projects in the past as a guest mentor, judge and lecturer. Dundee continues to inspire much of his work and his last project, The Last of Us Part II, contains several callouts to his home city!
Richard Jolly
Richard is CEO and founder of Splash Damage, started in 2001 directly after leaving Abertay. During his time with the studio, Richard held a multitude of positions, including Creative Director, Art Director and Chief Marketing Officer, before becoming CEO in 2018.
Richard has contributed to all the studio’s titles, including the Enemy Territory series, Batman Arkham Origins, Brink, four Gears of War titles, and HALO MCC. As a founder, Richard has always been closely involved with the running of the studio and helped grow the company to now close approaching 400 splashers.
Under Richard’s leadership, Splash Damage is once again focusing on creating online multiplayer experiences that connect players and build lifelong friendships.
