Game Design Contest For Teens

Via the Guardian's gameblog, a BBC "Blast" sponsored game design contest for teenagers. They're looking for new ideas from folks ages 13 - 19, and the winning design will be made into a game for the Blast site. They also have a nifty (though flash based) Game Quiz which covers not only the history of games but also game design issues as well.

That'd be something I'd like to see

[CrazyJim1]

I think it'd be entertaining to wade through people's game ideas. Get a general feel for what people find is fun, and what they want to see being played. I bet the judges suck and will pick some lame winner, but mining the data itself would be quite entertaining I think.

Re:Argue on the quiz.

[Doomstalk]

Indeed. Their question "Which company makes the most money?", for example, was really ambiguous? Are we talking the whole company, or just the gaming divisions? In what time period? If you can't make it clear in a single sentence, then it shouldn't be a question. Oh, and I thought their history quiz was a joke. Games like Devil May Cry are far too new for a history quiz.

Re:Argue on the quiz.

[cgenman]

It also asks "Realistic detail is added to 3-D games by:" and the listed answer is texture mapping. Which is not a bad answer, except that the equally valid answer "lighting" is also listed. Now we can get into a CG war, but vertex shading / artificial lighting generally predates texture mapping on consumer 3D games as a way of adding depth, and a lot of the more advanced bump mapping and normal mapping are lighting-based and are what really pushes games into "realistic detail." In other words, there are multiple valid answers.

And what do you call what keeps a character from walking into a wall? At my company, it's "clipping," "collision detection," or "BSP's." The listed answer is, of course, "clash detection," which explains why my games keep clashing.

Making 3D scenes look like a comic strip? Cell shading. Apparently not, as this is looking for "toon shading," whatever that is.

Maybe terminology is different in England. Maybe the Umbrella Corporation really is called the Umbrella Syndicate in England. Or Guile's name is spelled with 2 l's. Maybe he picked up the other letter when "modding" lost a D.

"In terms of good design, 3D scenes are designed to have..." A: A high polygon count, B: A low polygon count, C: A very high polygon count. The correct answer is D: exactly as many polys as a system can push without upsetting the other processes or dropping below 30 / 60 FPS.

"Most games are developed with C++ and GL. What does GL stand for?" Apparently there is a new language sweeping England called "Graphics Library," which may or may not encompass the sound libraries, controller libraries, physics engines, animation engines, Open GL, ActiveX, etc.

"Who comes up with the initial visual idea for a game?" Correct answer: Concept Artist, or possibly Publisher. Answer that gets you points: Developer. Of what? Apparently Developer of Concept Art.

"Approximately how much does it cost to develop a top of the range console game?" Pounds had better be worth a lot more than dollars, because 3 million is mid range either way.

Considering the number of development houses that EA has, calling them strictly a publisher is a bit of a misnomer.

A "marketing manager" manages marketers. The person responsible for advertising a game is a "marketing director."

And, of course, there is the listing of Flash instead of Studio Max as a 3D package, or that Sony sold more consoles than Nintendo, or that only 30 people work in the UK gaming industry (pretty interesting for a country that the quiz says has 400 companies.)

I'm sure the QA engineers at my company would be annoyed by the question about people who are "paid to play games all day."

Speaking of annoyed, "You can protect your IP by getting people to sign NDA's. What does NDA stand for?" "When making games, you need to protect your IP. What does IP stand for?" I Presume you mean copyright and trade secrets. Or It Perhaps could be regular secrets / the element of surprise.

Re:This does not belong on a tech website

[rbullo]

What was wrong with "Health Concerns of CRT Monitors?" I felt that was quite enlightening.

I remember...

[chrisbeatty]

...there was a similar competition in the early 90's to design a game.

It ended up with the game Worms [micromart.co.uk]being created.

I know the industry has changed quite a lot since then but I would like to see something similar happen if a really good idea for a game comes up!!