Edinburgh Science Festival
'Dare to be Digital'- and BAFTA-winner Shrunk on show next week.
A computer game that won two BAFTAs in one night last month will be a highlight of Abertay University’s presence at the Edinburgh Science Festival next week.
The game, entitled “Shrunk”, is one of the 14 games developed during last year’s “Dare to be Digital” competition, organised and run by Abertay.
The three winning games from Dare to be Digital 2009 became the sole nominees for the “Ones to Watch” Award at the BAFTA Videgames Awards, and two of them were also nominated for the “Best New Game” Award at the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards. On 19 March, “Shrunk” scooped both BAFTAs at simultaneous ceremonies in London and Glasgow.
This weekend (10-11 April), “Shrunk” and the other 13 games will be available for the public to try out for themselves at the capital’s St James Centre shopping mall as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival.
Next week, youngsters aged between 12 and 16 will get a chance to see whether they’ve got what it takes to compete in Dare to be Digital and possibly even become a future BAFTA winner. Abertay University is running two-day intensive video game creation workshops on 12-13 April and 14-15 April.
Abertay University’s Elaine Russell, project manager for Dare to be Digital, said: “This is a great opportunity for anyone who missed the Dare ProtoPlay showcase at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe to come and try these fabulous games – especially the awesome BAFTA winner and nominees.
“In addition, budding games designers will have a great opportunity to test their skills in one of our two-day workshops. For anyone dreaming of a career in games development, this Video Game Studio - based on our successful Dare mentoring model - is the one for you,” she added.
Abertay computer games students will be on hand to advise and help the youngsters, and give them a flavour of what it’s like to study the subject at Abertay, and an insight into how to get started on the computer games career path.
“Participants will get a behind the scenes look at how a video game is created, what technology is involved and what the different development roles are. They will work in teams to try out some of the current technology and create a small piece of animated video game to take home with them,” said Elaine Russell.
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NOTE FOR EDITORS
The exhibition of Dare to be Digital 2009 video games in the St James Centre on Saturday and Sunday is open to the public and is free.
The Dare Video Game Studio workshop events are ticket-only. Tickets can be purchased from the Edinburgh Science Festival website:
http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/Events/Highlights/Video-Game-Studio
Dare to be Digital is organised and run by Abertay University, with sponsorship from Turner Broadcasting, Intel, Wacom, NCR, the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Dundee City Council. Technology support is provided by Adobe, Autodesk, Codesion, Crytek, Emergent, Hansoft and Sony.
The teams selected for Dare to be Digital 2010 will be announced in May., and the competition proper will start on 7 June at Abertay University in Dundee.
Teams selected for the competition will spend 10-weeks in an intensive 'hot-house' development environment, building fully-functioning prototypes for assessment by industry judges and a public vote at Dare ProtoPlay, scheduled for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.