Lowestoft Young Game Designer 2015 (YGD) is a competition run by L6FC in partnership with local high schools working together to run after-school game design and coding clubs. It mirrors the national BAFTA YGD contest which has been running for the last few years between January and June. It’s open to students from aged between 10 & 18 and is free to enter. The contest consists of 2 different themes. Firstly there are the “Game Makers” who will code a game in a variety of software packages such as Scratch, Python, Game Maker and Unity. Secondly, there is an award for “Game Concept” which is more about creating a narrative structure and developing a good character for a game. The game must be suitable for all ages and be an original idea. This year we had teams from Pakefield and BBHS with the contest itself judged by the lecturers from the Game Design Degree course at UCS. The final and presentations were hosted here at L6FC.
The 2015 Game Maker award winner was Jake Carver (Year 11 Pakefield student who plans to study at Lowestoft Sixth Form College from September, but not ICT!). His game was called Apple Eater. The judges from UCS said; ‘Jake’s Apple Eater is a wonderful exponent of the ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ style of game-play. He has demonstrated a masterful understanding of flow and progression. Supplemented by thorough and insightful documentation, and dressed in quirky animations and colourful pixel art, Jake’s passion is irreproachable and we wish him well with his continued exploration of game development.’
The Game Concept award was won by Hannah Hayward also from Pakefield. Her brother won the contest last year and also entered this year but lost out. Not only that but she has been shortlisted in the top 10 National BAFTA YGD contest (out of the thousands that applied!). This means Hannah will travel to London to the big awards ceremony with the celebs and get a chance of winning a BAFTA and a host of other prizes. Her game is called Love, which you can find featured on the BAFTA competition website.
The UCS judges commented; ‘We were rather taken aback by Hannah’s maturity and natural understanding of the player experience. By working emotions into the core of her design, and by displaying both an astonishing eye for detail and an aesthetic sensibility which most professionals would be envious of, everything Hannah does is warm and sincere. She has demonstrated a grasp of progression and anticipation, and of character motivation and relationships, and she has married these perfectly to sympathetic game mechanics. We can easily imagine shedding a tear or two as the robots touch for the first time in front of the Eiffel tower. We encourage Hannah to continue shunning clichés and to unleash her own unique vision upon the world.’
Due to the success of the contest UCS have asked their feeder colleges and there feeder high schools to submit entries to our contest when it starts again next January.
Aged Between 10 & 18? Could You Be The Future Of Games?
Take part in the YGD competition, open from 21st Jan until 1st June 2015, and you could see your gaming idea turned into a reality by a team of experts. Ever fancied seeing your game available on Google Play or in the App Store? Enter YGD and it might just become a reality for you!