The Dare to be Digital competition has come a long way in the last five years. From a small, local competition, it has grown into a global event which is only now becoming recognised as a truly significant opportunity to find, encourage and recognise new talent within the interactive world.
The 2008 Dare competition and Protoplay event was the biggest ever, with more teams, more development centres, more games, more people and more attention than the competition has ever received.
Running alongside the Protoplay event, which gave members of the public a chance to play and enjoy the games created by this year's finalists, ran alongside the consumer side of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival - within the same venue.
The crowds were very definitely there. Every opportunity we had to stick our heads into the EICC's Cromdale Hall, it was packed - and we had to queue to actually play anything.
From speaking to a number of the judges, the standard this year was even higher than they've come to expect from Dare over recent years. A couple of projects were mentioned numerous times as not only being of 'commercial quality', but hugely playable and enjoyable.
Trust us when we say that when you see someone from a development company, grinning like a ten year old, while describing a game, it normally means there's something special about it.
The final, glittering - and we do mean glittering - award ceremony took place yesterday with not only Abertay Principal Bernard King, but Scotland's Culture Minister Linda Fabiani in attendance.
Readers, it was slick. Very slick. Completely professional host/MC (Michelle Watt, who pretended not to remember us at all...) an appreciative audience and a fantastic range of entries.
The now infamous Dare development diaries made their annual appearance, though how they'll continue to feature everyone as the competition grows (17 teams this year), we're not sure. The SG suggestion is a 'big brother' style live feed from White Space, which can be edited down to the highlights (fights over the efficiency of rendering engines and who used the last of the sugar...)
The eventual winners were:
Blue Skies - ORIGAMEE (Abertay University)
CRTL_D - VEGEME (Peking University)
Dark Matter Designs - BORO-TORO (Wolverhampton University)
All three teams are now automatically entered into the newly created BAFTA Ones To Watch award, which is will be chosen and presented in March 2009.
In addition GRAV by Contrived (Edinburgh University) won the audience award, receiving the greatest number of votes from the Protoplay audience over the three days of the show.
You can read the full official release after the link.
Dare to be
Digital winners announced at awards ceremony
The winners of the
UK Edinburgh
Dare to be Digital, praised by
BAFTA as the ‘perfect pathway’ for young talent in the games industry, held its
2008 Awards Ceremony at the Edinburgh International Exhibition Centre at the
culmination of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival.
The three prizes went to: Blue Skies
( Abertay University
Dundee Peking University Wolverhampton University
Each team takes home £2,500 and
a BAFTA nomination for the BAFTA ‘Ones to Watch’ award which will be awarded in
March next year.
Origamee is set in a 3D pop-up story book themed world
incorporating traditional adventure style puzzle solving. Environmental issues such as recycling and pollution are
raised subtlety throughout the game.
Boro-Toro is a side
scrolling platform puzzle game which uses an innovative control system using Wii
technology.
VegeMe allows the
player to grow and style their own world in a race against their opponent
Organised and promoted by the
University of Abertay Dundee in association with Channel 4, Dare to be Digital
this year saw 17 five-strong teams of students haling from Birmingham to Beijing
spending the last 10 weeks in host centres across the United Kingdom.
Six teams were based at
Abertay University India China London Birmingham Dublin
Earlier
this week, the teams went head to head in a unique public showcase, Dare
ProtoPlay, staged as part of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival. Over three
days around 3000 visitors attended the event, trying out the new games and
voting for their favourite.
In addition to the public vote, the
teams were also put under the unforgiving scrutiny of a panel of junior judges –
aged 6-13 years old.
Contrived ( Edinburgh University
Abertay University
A panel of seventeen judges,
made up of representatives from fifteen different companies including Sony,
Babel Media, Channel 4 and Sport Interactive, then had the task of picking the
three winners based on creativity and innovation, use of technology and market
potential.
This is the ninth year of Dare to be Digital, which
originated at
Professor Bernard King CBE,
Principal of Abertay said: “As the
originators and organisers
of Dare to be Digital, Abertay University is extremely proud to be working with
all the sponsors and supporters of Dare in promoting the talents, skills and
creativity that contribute directly to the success of the computer games sector
both in Scotland and across the UK and Ireland. This includes the other universities who
joined with Abertay this year to run hosting centres across the
UK Ireland Birmingham City University Brighton University University of London
“It’s success is demonstrated by the very high
proportion of previous contestants who have been hired by a whole range of
companies such as Electronic Arts, Rare, Denki, Realtime Worlds and Lionhead;
others have even set up their own games development companies, and during this
year’s contest we were delighted to note the first commercial launch of a game
developed in Dare to be Digital.”
Minister for Europe, External
Affairs and Culture Linda Fabiani said: “The Scottish Government is delighted to provide support of £56,800 to
Dare to be Digital which brings the world’s leading games design competition to
Scotland Scotland
Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning
Fiona Hyslop said: “I’m delighted to see young Scots
competing at an international level and collaborating with students from around
the world. Dare to be Digital
demonstrates the excellent learning environment that Scotland Scotland
Richard Leinfellner CEO of
BabelMedia who chaired the judging panel said: “As chairman of the judging panel
it is my pleasure to relay that the panel of game industry experts felt the
overall standard of this year’s entries exceeded all their expectation both in
terms of breadth of subject matter and overall game quality.
“In a climate of spiralling costs
and product slippages Dare consistently manages to highlight what is achievable
by the best new talent looking to enter the games business in just 10
weeks.”
Ray Maguire, UK Managing Director of
Sony Computer Entertainment and judging panel member said: "Once again, Dare has revealed some true
talent. The quality is the best we have ever seen and it is possible to see some
of these prototypes becoming commercial. We are delighted to be involved again
this year and look forward to revealing the winner of the BAFTA Ones to Watch
Award at the British Academy Video Games Awards on in March
2009"
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