The video games produced for this year's Dare to be Digital, the UK's
premier computer games design competition hosted by the University of
Abertay Dundee, are now available to download free online. This,
of course, includes the three winning games Colour Coded by Pixel
Pirates, Quick As Thieves by Gentlemen of Fortune and Shrunk by The
Butterflyers which are now the sole finalists for the BAFTA Ones to
Watch Award, as announced at Dare ProtoPlay at the Edinburgh Festival
Fringe.
There are a variety of platform and arcade style games,
each with it's own dazzling graphics, inventive characters and unique
settings including: alien planets, troublesome farmlands, a lost bee
colony, 3D puzzles, and a die hard rock fan on a mission to rescue the
world from pop music. Games created during previous Dare to be
Digital competitions have gone on to be developed for the commercial
market such as Coda Chain and 'VegeMe' for the i-phone which was
previewed at Dare ProtoPlay this year.
14 teams of five students
spent 10 weeks at the Dare Development Hothouse' at the University of
Abertay Dundee where they had access to top of the range equipment
provided by an illustrious list of sponsors in addition to receiving
mentoring from some of the top names in the computer games industry.
This year the teams came from as far as China, India, Norway and
Canada, as well as the UK and Ireland. As well as being invited
to provide game ideas during the start of the competition and being
invited to judge the games at Dare ProtoPlay, members of the public
were able to follow the teams' progress online via blog entries and
video diaries.