Dare to be Digital kicks off

Fifteen finalist teams in this year’s annual Dare to be Digital contest have today begun their quest to win a BAFTA.

The 2010 finalists represent 15 competing universities spread across the UK and Ireland, but also stretching to schools in India, Sweden, China and the US.

The competition sees teams of arts and science students create working game prototypes under the watchful eye of industry design veterans and publisher execs.

Last year’s competition awarded three finalists £2,500 in hand at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with one team – The Butterflyers – going on to take the coveted Ones To Watch BAFTA prize.

The Butterflyers quickly grew a prosperous reputation, taking interviews from the press and even have the second most powerful man in UK politics pay a visit and play the group’s winning game.

The competition officially kicked off this week, with entrants situated at the University of Abertay in Dundee.

Elaine Russell, Dare to be Digital project manager, said Abertay is “a world leader in computer games design education”.

She added: “Abertay’s unique approach is to emulate as realistically as possible the real-world, hot-house environment of commercial games development, and to involve industry in the design and delivery of courses.

“Dare to be Digital mirrors this approach exactly, which is why students around the world see it as such an exciting challenge, and why the computer games industry views it as a hotbed of new creative talent. This year we had extremely hard selection criteria for entries and 2010 promises to be the toughest challenge for competitors yet.”