YoYo Games

YoYo Games have announced their fourth $1000 casual game development competition, the last of 2008. While they’re still hoping for a huge haul of great games the competition’s the focus has changed slightly. This time YoYo has asked its developers to create games to “Save the Planet”. Or rather, games which address environmental issues.

“We’re often told that the only solution to these collective problems is mass action - the message must be spread to as many as people as possible if our own environmental compromises are to count for anything.” Said Sandy Duncan, CEO of YoYo Games “Computer games are a great way to reach young people and get them interacting with these important debates.”

Computer games have occasionally been accused of being developed in a “moral vacuum”, with their new competition YoYo Games hope to change that. Although there is no stipulation as to which debate is addressed, or even which side of the debate the game should be for, the expectation is that the games will have a message. Something lacking from most casual games today. Of course they also have to be great fun to play.

The competition runs until January 4th, when the winning games will share the $1750 prize pool. All games should be made using Game Maker, the easy game development toolkit available free from YoYoGames.com.

p.s. Yes, apparently they are aware of the irony of using energy-hungry computers to communicate a green message: “Better this than 300 games about saving princesses”.

About YoYoGames.com

YoYo Games Ltd is a UK Based Game Start-up founded by games industry veterans, Sandy Duncan and Michel Cassius. YoYo Games launched its beta site in May 2007 and has grown to be the world’s largest user generated game site with over 23, 000 games. Employing a web 2.0 community model YoYo Games allows users to “Play, Make and Share games” for free.

You can visit YYG at www.YoYoGames.com