Ever wanted to be a rock star who fights evil? With your weapon of choice a magical guitar infused with the essence of an all-powerful rock-god? Well you may soon be able to. A video game prototype has won two out of four categories in this year’s prestigious Dare to be Digital competition.
The fantasy role-playing game, Ragnaraw, was created by a 5-strong team of self-selected arts & engineering students, all from the University of Abertay, and known collectively as Voodoo Boogy. The team was one of twelve to compete this year, out of a line up that included four Scottish teams, four English teams, two Irish teams, one Indian team and one Chinese team.
A once small-time video games design competition from University Abertay in the rural city of Dundee is leading the way by challenging industry standards. Dare to be Digital is now the UK’s premier competition for students from anywhere in the world, who want to design their own dream video game. The 2007 winners of Dare to be Digital, who are also nominees for a brand-new BAFTA, have just been announced.
Over the past eight years Dare to be Digital has grown into an international phenomenon in innovative computer games development. The competition has been hailed by BAFTA as the “perfect pathway” for young talent in the games industry. With a large percentage of contestants now working for developers and publishers including RealTime Worlds, Codemasters, BBC Scotland, Denki, Rockstar North, Electronic Arts UK and Electronic Arts Shanghai, Dare to be Digital has become an internationally renowned proving ground for talented computer science and art students in designing their own game.
Every summer Abertay University hosts self-selected teams of five in well equipped computer labs, the student teams receiving funding and high-level mentoring support from industry veterans. The teams compete over ten weeks to design a fully functioning video game prototype.
The resulting prototypes are then pitched to a selection panel of games industry influentials. Dare to be Digital is unique in offering the immense industry support during the ten week development period, giving these budding games whizzes the opportunity of a lifetime to shine.
These self-selected talent teams consist of young creative art student visionaries working alongside budding engineers. Together they are building a powerful position for themselves by developing and publishing their own games.
This year the Dare to be Digital competition presented its wares to the public at Dare ProtoPlay, an installation extravaganza set up for the public to trial all 12 video game prototypes. Dare ProtoPlay was held earlier in August at the sensational Our Dynamic Earth complex, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Edinburgh Interactive Festival (EIF07). Alongside a two-day conference combining academia and industry, EIF07 is expanding a creative culture of games in its link to Dare ProtoPlay, with over 2,500 people attending the installation over 3 days.
The winning teams were announced at a special awards ceremony held at the University of Abertay Dundee last week. The three main categories for 2007, each worth a £2,500 prize, have been won by Phoenix Seed with Bear Go Home, for Innovation and Creativity; Carebox with ClimbActic, for Use of Technology; and Voodoo Boogy with Ragnarawk, for Commercial Potential, who also won the Audience Award. All three winning teams will now go forward as the only nominees for the new BAFTA Ones To Watch award. The prestigious award is due to be announced on Tuesday 23 October 2007 at Battersea Evolution in Battersea Park, London, as part of the British Academy Video Games Awards (BAVGA), run by BAFTA.
Arts Hub spoke to Paul Durrant, director of Dare to be Digital, to get the low-down. “Creating a video game is not like creating a film for the cinema, where the audience is static, and has no power to change the way the plot develops. You need more than compelling audio and image. The challenge is within the specifics of the interactive element – the ‘useablility’ of the interface of a game,” he says.
The depth and breadth of computer games is sky-rocketing with the advent of online gaming as well as the evolution of the gamer’s interface, such as with Wii.
Talking of the competition, Paul Durrant continues, “We are challenging the process of creating software, by saying, ‘Look what this fresh blood can do in ten weeks, where your development company create the same in six months spending half a million dollars’”.
But it’s more about meeting industry expectations. Paul says, “These pitches and demonstrations are what the judges expect from within their own company.”
Big name publishers are using conventional formulas producing big budget titles with established story lines and content. For instance, James Bond titles. These processes are being challenged by the market – by the same people/contestants participating in Dare to be Digital, creating a user-generated product.
Dare has grown from a local competition with local sponsorship to an international competition with multinational sponsorship. And the means by which Dare to be Digital has grown is in giving young independent visionaires and creative engineers the chance to work together, and have a real economic impact on the commercial market, through an innovative and efficient process.
The European Games Convention will be held in Leipzig, Germany this weekend (23-26th August), with a massive outdoor arena and camping ground!
