Games development competition Dare To Be Digital (previously covered here) is now open to applicants. This is the 10th year of Dare and to celebrate, they’re throwing their metaphorical doors open to the community.

There are two formats for the competition this year, Do and Dream.

Do is the traditional development competition. Teams of 5 students or recent graduates are chosen from around the country to develop a game from scratch in 6 weeks over summer. The big difference this year is that they choose from ideas submitted by the community.

Dream is the new community section. Anybody can register on the website and pitch their game idea. Other people will vote for their favourite ideas and add comments. The Do team will then choose an idea each and develop the game for the competition. Those dreamers who submitted the chosen ideas will win the following:

• £500 cash prize for the originators of games subsequently chosen by the teams for development.
• An invitation to to the Dare Awards ceremony to receive the prize
• A single return UK flight and 3 nights’ accommodation to Edinburgh to take part in Dare ProtoPlay during the Edinburgh Festival period. Terms & Conditions apply. (If you are from overseas, you have the option of taking £200 in cash instead or we can fly you from London)
• Exposure to the top notch games companies and partners that Dare is associated with
• A showcase opportunity in Dare ProtoPlay
• Publicity

For more information check out the Dreamer’s FAQ and the Do-ers FAQ

As mentioned previously, the games developed in 2007’s Dare to Be Digital competition will be showcased at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival. The festival this year will run from 13th to 14th August. The programme has now been announced, with thirteen events spread across two days. And that’s not even counting Dare Protoplay. Here are the bits I found most interesting:

Edinburgh Interactive Festival

Monday 13th August – 15:45 Games Actually
Sevket Gozolan, Marie-Sol Beaudry, Patrick O’Luanaigh, Sean Dromgoole
Are game developers and publishers paying attention to the fastest growing sector in the interactive games industry…the female gamer? Do they really need to? Join the debate with industry insiders Sean Dromgoole of Some Research, Marie-Sol Beaudry of Ubisoft, Patrick O’Luanaigh of nDreams and Sevket Gozalan of Play Vanilla.

S’pose that depends on whether or not you want to fight for attention in an almost-saturated market or expand your horizons to include new people, doesn’t it?
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Last year I wrote a couple of posts on the Dundee-based games development competition for students, Dare To Be Digital.

This year’s contest is now accepting entries from London and the South East of England. For those living elsewhere, I do apologise for not covering this earlier. The Irish and Scottish application deadline was apparently 11th April 2007. There doesn’t seem to be a Welsh centre this year.

If you’re a university student in London or recently graduated and you want to get into video game development, this competition is probably the best start you can get. I interviewed former competitor Stephen McGreal. He was team leader of Zoo Crew, who won the prize for “Greatest Market Potential” back in 2003. Since the competition Stephen has worked for EA and Rockstar Leeds:
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The results for this year’s Dare To Be Digital competition (as previously covered here) were announced last night. The big money prizes were…

Most Commercial Potential – Artisan with Metalheads (Go Tommy!)

Greatest Innovation and Creativity – Log2 n with Flux

Best Use of Technology for Product Delivery – Rule of Thumb with Gal Ex: Spacial Delivery

Best use of Screenwriting – Phaigo Interactive with Spaceport

And the Virtuoso Prize, which was sponsored and awarded by Denki went to Nicholas Koumentakis of Phaigo Interactive. I shall have to find out what the heck that was later, when the party hangovers have worn off.

Congratulations to everyone. The full list of prizes is on the official website awards page.

It’s close to the end of Dare to be Digital, the ten-week-long international game-development competition for university students. Competitors have been working steadily on their designs for the past nine weeks and if the developer diaries are anything to go by, they’re under some serious pressure. Twelve-hour days, weekend working – sounds like they’re doing a great job of modelling the infamously less-enjoyable parts of the games industry. Still, all the better to experience it first-hand, hey? With all that stress you’d expect there to be some serious competition but I’ve been told that “With regards to the rival teams, they’re actually not that hostile towards us.”

Not that hostile? Faint praise… Joking aside, I’m sure everyone’s more focused on making the best game they can, not bitching about others’. Click on the images to view each team’s diary.

Hosted by the University of Abertay in Dundee, Dare to be Digital is a fantastic way for students to get to grips with the realities of working in game development. As goes the mantra on many a developer’s recruitment pages, just about anyone can come up with an idea. Converting that idea to a finished product is a much more complex and painful process and this competition not only forces the students to deal with that reality but also provides immense support in the form of training sessions and advice from established games companies like Rare, EA, Nintendo of Europe and many others. What better way for an aspiring game developer to make those invaluable industry contacts?
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