Three Thing Game Winner – Team Sheerware with HyperMorpth
Well today marked the final of the University of Hull Three Thing Game competition.
From the 40 team 160 students who started we had only lost a small number and throughout the night all of the teams had made AWESOME progress.
Many of the teams were already testing and evaluating their and fellows teams games when we arrived back at the venue early this morning.
I have to state that we were all significantly impressed with the number of first year students who were still in attendance when considering they had only started with XNA this week so the last 24 hours had been a significant learning curve.
The judging was extremely difficult, I had the honour to be part of the judging teams, during the judging we were chaperoned by camera operators who captured the presentations on video @RobMiles and the team from Hull will be editing these and making them available as show real so check back soon for an update.
Each team of judges then picked their top two entries, the top two from each group went forward into the final rounds, which consisted of eight teams. The eight teams then had to present and demo their game to the audience of fellow finalist and judges which consisted of Academics, Indie Gaming Dev’s, Microsoft and Monogame staff.
Thanks to Rob for this lovely picture of me and the prizes you can see his full photo stream here on Flickr
The finalist wait anxiously to be called to present. Judges can be scary!
The Finals
Finalist 1. ‘Three Game’O’Holics’, the first presenters, preparing to show off their game inspired by “Fighting, Desk, in a Dress”. This was an impressive take on the a doodle jump style game with a addictive two player mode and would make a gorgeous Windows Phone and Windows 8 app.
Finalist 2 ‘No Method, No Class’. with “Caffeine, Monkey, under attack”. The gameplay and sound-effects were excellent as monkeys came in for the kill. Huge Kudos to this team as the group was made up of one second year and two first year students and was significant addictive top down shooter.
Finalist 3. ‘Uncle Mikes Recursive Prolog Party?’” who had built a space shooter, Asteroid style but with semantic zoom to view the galaxy with a seriously addictive sound track. Again a perfect app for the Windows 8 store with the use of virtual joypad and semantics zoom control.
Finalist 4. ‘Sheerware Games’ showing off their Hyper Morph Windows Phone game, made from "Flying, Bombs, Tank". Based on the side scrolling defender/Rtype game built for Windows Phone and portable to Windows 8 via Monogame.
Finalist 5. The Honeybadger crew with Ninja defence a superb Windows Phone with invaders storming your castle and you letting loose with arrows, ninja stars and fireworks to see them off again a polished app ready for the Windows Phone marketplace and Windows 8 store via monogame.
Finalist 6. ‘Michael Jacksons Indian Takeaway’ with “Spray of Duty Modern Warbear” really original game based on a lone Teddy soldier using his deodorant to save off increasing numbers of invading poptarts of various flavours. The game had amazing use of shaders this would be excellent as Windows 8 app using either a virtual control pad or keyboard or controller.
Finalist 7.Battle Brothers They had created an astonishing looking space warfare game. This had great 3D graphics and physics engine. This would be a great rival to Armed within the Windows 8 store and I know it would have lots of interest and downloads.
Finalist 8 Two Sirs’ This was one of the most ambitious games I have ever seen, the team developed a multi-player game experience involving a battle between Kinect controlled angler fish and Windows Phone powered goldfish.
And the winners are!
In Third Place. Battle Brothers with their Lego prizes and I’m looking forward to seeing this amazing 3D Space Shooter in the Windows 8 store soon.
In Second Place. Honeybadger Productions clutching their prizes of Microsoft Kinect sensor and Microsoft T shirts prizes. Well deserved and a game with great potential and look forward to seeing this is the Windows Phone marketplace and Windows 8 store soon.
And the Winners!
Sheerware get the big prize of Windows Phone, Windows Phone Design Guide, Limited Edition Windows 8 T Shirt, and USB drive. I am really looking forward to downloading Hyper Morph from both the Windows Phone marketplace and Windows 8 store soon.
The People Choice Winner – Voted by all the participating teams in the competition.
The prize of Star Wars Lego Advent Calendars and Exclusive Ubelly.com T Shirts went to Sheerware.
So the key message
Get students undertaking competition such as this, ensure students develop real portfolios uploading apps/games to the Windows Phone and Windows 8 stores to demonstrate their competences and skills. All Students get free Windows Phone Marketplace, Windows 8 and Xbox developer accounts and store accounts for FREE via www.dreamspark.com for more details see www.DreamSpark.com and https://create.msdn.com
Samples and References
For students interested in developing for XNA we have lots of resources available for FREE see
Microsoft Faculty Connection Resources - https://www.microsoft.com/faculty
XNA Creators Club Education Samples - https://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/
Windows 8 Development for XNA using MonoGame
Getting your apps in Store
Windows 8 app certification requirements https://Aka.ms/storereq
Resolving certification errors after submitting to store https://Aka.ms/storefix
Other Competitions
The Inter University Game Jam 2012 is taking place on 17-18th of Nov so if this was interest please enter or get your students to enter via https://www.devsoc.co.uk/game-jam.
The Imagine Cup 2013 the premier student world wide student game development competition. https://www.imaginecup.com