Dare to be Digital - Final Results

[ross_coe]

Well folks, for those of you that have been keeping an eye on the Dare to be Digital 2004 competition, the results are finally out. Goto http://www.daretobedigital.com click enter and navigate to the bottom of the main page to find out who the winners are.

For those of you who don't know, Dare to be Digital is a once-a-year competition held at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland. It takes 6 teams of students from around Scotland and gives them the chance to develope a prototype video game or digital product for 10 weeks over the summer. And this year an extra team from Ireland was bought over to take part as well. All the entrants are paid £170 a week and are also given a budget to invest in their game or product.

As well as being given the facilities and software to accomplish this task, the teams also get the invaluable and exclusive help of Mentors over the course of the competition. Previous participants are on hand to help with programming, art and audio, and industry professionals from some of the local Games companies kindly give up their valuable time to guide the competitors (Dundee has been the home of such great titles as Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto and State of Emergency...so this help is hugely beneficial). This year also included former Disney animator Fraser Maclean on the team of Mentors, with a mountain of expert knowledge and enthusiasm

And as if this help wasnt enough, the list of judges, sponsors, and prizes was amazing. The judges included: Jon Jordan, Technology Editor, Develop magazine; Adrian Curry, Account Manager, Microsoft Xbox; Mark Fenwick, Business Support Manager, NESTA; Chris Stamp, Producer, Real Time Worlds; Julie Adair, Head of BBC Scotland Interactive; Kieran Connell, Senior Software Engineer, Rare; Richard Leinfellner, Vice President, Executive in Charge of Production, Electronic Arts; Jim Woods, Executive Producer, Codemasters; Mark Grossi, Chief Technology Officer, NCR.
The panel spent all of Wednesday listening to presentations from each of the seven teams. And on Thurday an Exhibition of the games took place at Dundee Contemporary Arts where school kids got the chance to play the various creations. This was followed by the prize giving ceremony. Master of Ceremonies was Chris van der Kuyl from Vis Entertainment, and speeches were given by Scotlands Finance Minister Andy Kerr and Professor Bernard King, Principle and Vice Chancellor of Abertay University. A film showing the highlights of the competition was also shown, which was filmed by Rob Page.

The team prizes included Greatest Creativity (£2000), Greatest Innovation (£2000), the Rare prize for Tecnological Excellence (£2000), and Best Team Working Group (£1000). There were also individual prizes of XBoxs for Best Programmer, Best Artist and Best Audio person.

I'd just like to say at this point that I was extremely lucky to be part of one of this years teams called "Just Add Water" (along with threedy forum member la_chix and 3 programmers), and we were again lucky enough to be awarded the Rare prize for Tecnological Excellence.

The other prizes went to City Scrawlaz (Greatest Creativity), Pixie Dust (Greatest Innovation) and Fizzle (Best Team Working Group). Xboxs went to Blair Harrower (Best Artist - City Scrawlaz), David Meikle (Best Audio - Blue Moon Rising) and Edmund Kapusniak (Best Programmer - Just Add Water...our team ).

As well as these great prizes, the winning teams also get the chance to showcase their games at Europe’s leading trade event for the interactive entertainment industry, ECTS.

During the Competition, the teams were also given passes to the Edinburgh International Games Festival, as well as VIP tickets to the after show party. Travel and accomodation was also kindly paid for. And a whole day mid-competition was also set aside for a visit from Electronic Arts, which included a talk from a few of last years participants now workin at EA. Free games were kindly handed out to all the individuals taking part in Dare as well.


I think it would be fair to say that this competition is to become the very best of it's kind in the world (and I'm sure many of the judges and sponsors would agree). And each year it is becoming more and more of an International event. Next year the competition will expand into South Asia, with students from Hong Kong, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thaland being given the chance to come to Abertay to take part in the event.


I'd just like to say that this competition was a great experience, and gave an amazing insight into how games are made within the industry. The help and support was second to none, and the chance for a student to meet so many professionals from different companies is surely something that no other competition gives. And we were all met with kindness at all times. And of course the whole thing has been great fun amd a great learning experience.


Anyways, I hope you guys can plug this competition. It really is worth letting people know about. Especially for anyone who are trying to get into the industry. It give the teams experience of the teamwork, deadlines, and creative problems that we might face in our future careers. And perhaps the most important thing....the joy and amazement when you finally see the game you helped create being played.
In fact I Dare say it'd be worthy of more than a plug (see the pun there....hahaha )

Cheers



PS: ummm...our team has a website at http://www.justaddwatergame.com There isn't much there just now (our game looks VERY different to the old screenshots you see there)....but although the competition is finished now, we hope to get a demo up and update the site with concept art, screenshots, and more

[ross_coe]

hmmm guess no-ones interested

[the_solidshadow]

it'll take too long to read lol

can you sum it up?

[ross_coe]

sum it up? hmmm lets see......

Runs for 10 weeks over the summer at abertay university dundee.
7 teams (5 per team max) develop their own prototype video game and each person gets £170 a week.
The university provides all the hardware and software (Max5, Photoshop, Flash, Visual Studio.Net etc etc)

Help is provided from Mentors who come in from some of the local games comapnies like:
RealTime Worlds
Vis Entertainment
Visual Science
Denki

Prizes are:
Best Creativity Prize (team prize - £2000)
Best Innovation Prize(team prize - £2000)
Rare Technological Excellence Prize (team prize - £2000...our team won that )
Best Team Work Prize (team prize - £1000)

Sponsors and judges include Microsoft, Rare, BBC, Electronic Arts, Develop Magazine, and much more

As well as that, all the entrants get free passes to the Edinburgh International Games Festival (including accomodation, travel and access to the VIP party afterwards)

And there were also 15 passes to the Game Developers Conference in Earls Court (given to anyone who could afford to travel and stay in London)


Thats about it I guess.

[the_solidshadow]

wow cool, thats great!
is there like a site to show all the contest winners, and the other entries?

[ross_coe]

www.daretobedigital.com
i think it's been updated with some photos n stuff lately....and there should be links to team websites (well the teams that had websites anyways) click the "past winners" button at the top of the main index page

and if you just wanna see some snaps of some of the entrants check out
http://www.justaddwatergame.com/foru...p?showtopic=10
most of the pics there were taken at the exhibition/prize giving day
also
http://www.interactivetayside.com/da...s/1DARETOB.JPG


just a wee note/suggestion to the 3DTotal team.....
the competition organisers are always on the look out for more sponsors. I think the number of sponsors is increasing every year.
if i may be so bold.....I was wondering what you might think of the idea of donating some texture cd's for the competition. would be a great bit of publicity methinks.
Like i say only a wee suggestion