Do you have an idea for the next 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution', 'Pandemic' or 'Splice'? Get £10K To Make it Happen!

The Wellcome Trust and Develop Conference have a new scheme to develop game ideas inspired by biomedical science into mass market games!  If you are successful in applying you get £10K to develop the idea, mentoring during the process and take part in a live pitch at Develop to a panel of experts including publishers.  You've got until the 26th April to get your submissions in, so best to get moving now!

Develop in Brighton in partnership with the Wellcome Trust brings a Live Pitch event to this year’s conference. Apply for Development Funding and Pitch Your Game at the Develop in Brighton Conference 2013.

Do you have an idea for the next 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution', 'Pandemic' or 'Splice'?

Developers are invited to apply for the chance to receive up to £10,000 each to develop a high-impact pitch for their game to help secure a distribution platform and funding. The ideas for your game need to draw on or be inspired by contemporary or historical biological or medical science in an innovative and accessible way. The games can be developed for any mass-appeal genre, platform or business model. Those who are successful will go on to pitch their developed game ideas to a panel of publishers and funders at a live event at Develop in Brighton on Wednesday 10 July 2013. Panellists joining the Wellcome Trust include Sony XDev and crowd-funding platform Indiegogo. Participating developers will be invited to receive additional pitch training ahead of the live event.

More information and details of how to apply are here: http://bit.ly/Zqvzj1

Newsgame Offers Wry Commentary on Horse Meat Scandal

BRISTOL, UK MARCH 4th, 2013: The creators of Endgame:Syria have turned their development attention to the ongoing horse-meat scandal in their latest release.   In 'Cow Crusher' the player runs their own meat processing plant and must ensure that its output is 100% beef, in an irreverent comment on the speed and mechanisation of our food  production process.  Players need to hit the right button to squish the animal into the right meat product and keep the quality high; while making sure they don't process any horses in the works.  Cow Crusher is the latest game by GameTheNews.net with the development  taking around 3 days to create it's newest newsgame.  GameTheNews's design and production director Tomas Rawlings commented, “Cow Crusher is part of an ongoing experiment into how games can play a role in news and current affairs and this time we've opted for a more fun approach to the topic.”  The game is out now to play for free online as HTML5 and for Android devices via Google Play. GameTheNews became a global talking-point following the release of 'Endgame:Syria' a game covering the ongoing war.  The developer says they are still “in process” with an Apple version of  Endgame:Syria and also have another serious title in production themed around the War on Drugs in Mexico.

Coverage:

"As soon as I saw this game I had to get it, one; For the humor, and two; Because it actually looked like a great game with continuous playability and that’s just what it is!" n3rdabl3.co.uk

• n3rdabl3.co.uk
• indiegamereviewer.com
• pocketgamer.co.uk
• ggsgamer.com
• Huffington Post
• MCV
• Gamasutra
• Guardian
• Vivid Gamer

First Syria, now Climate Change: Controversial Game Developers Explore Global Warming in New Game

BRISTOL, UK JANUARY 18th, 2013: Having made waves worldwide by covering the brutal Syrian civil war in the form of a game, the developers behind Endgame:Syria have released their latest 'news game' and this time the subject is not war, but carbon.  Titled 'Climate Defense' the free game released today for Android devices, offers the player the chance to stop CO2 emissions from reaching the atmosphere by capturing it in nature's carbon sinks, trees.  However there is a twist – before the game begins the player is offered a choice, if they want to play the game for fun or as a more realistic simulation – a choice that will lead to a very different gameplay experience.  The games designer, Tomas Rawlings, explained more; “Normally with a video game, the developers will have made huge concessions to ensure the game is fun so with a shooting game you may be able to be shot and recover many times over which is not realistic, but does make the game fun. In Climate Defense, that distinction is apparent so you can have fun playing the game or you can choose a more realistic experience and see how our continued emissions will impact our world.”  The game is free to download from the Google Play store or from the GameTheNews website. The creators of both games, GameTheNews, became a global talking point over their release of a game covering an ongoing war, have clearly decided that making games about difficult and controversial topics is not something they are willing to shy away from.  There is no sign of them turning to the more traditional topics of gaming such as zombies or aliens and they are currently developing a game about the 'War on Drugs'.

Endgame:Syria Becomes Global Talking-Point

Our GameTheNews.net project recently released what is, the world's first game to cover an ongoing war as news.  This newly emergent form of media, 'news games' and our contribution to the form, 'Endgame:Syria', has seen a huge surge in interest and players following its rejection by Apple's App Store (though it is online and on Android).  As a result GameTheNews.net and Endgame:Syria have become global talking-points, having recently been given extensive coverage by the BBC, the Economist, The Guardian, Venture Beat, The Daily Star (Lebanon) and Al-Jazeera to name but a few.  (There is a list of articles here and more on the reaction over at the designer's personal blog.)  Below are two examples of the coverage, starting with an article on Foreign Policy:

Many people would be hard-pressed to find Syria on a map, let alone know the factions that are fighting and the outside nations that are backing them. A simple computer card game may not be deep, but when players ponder whether to play a "Saudi Support for the Rebels" or a "Rebels Assassinate Key Regime Leader" card, they are making decisions, and that is how humans learn best. Perhaps it will spur them to learn more current events, or if nothing else, they may remember a few names and places, and who is fighting who. At the least, they will learn a lot more than playing Angry Birds on an iPhone.

Wired made these key points on the discussion:

As gamers, we are generally happy to delve into historical battles such as World War II in Medal of Honor, despite the devastation, violence and death, and barely an eyelid was batted when the genre moved into modern warfare in Afghanistan and Pakistan with its latter sequels. However, delving into an ongoing conflict, where tensions are extremely high and the subject matter sensitive, is another matter entirely. .. By addressing a current civil war and its multiple factions and infinite social complexities, Endgame: Syria is not giving us any answers -- it's encouraging us to ask more questions.

Try Endgame:Syria for yourself at GameTheNews.net!

The next newsgames to be released from GameTheNews are currently in development about the War on Drugs and Climate Change, coming soon!

Winning Wellcome Trust ExPlay Game Jam Entries now Online to Enjoy!

A busy audience assembled at the ExPlay event in Bath on the 2nd of November to hear the winning games announced from the eight short-listed titles. After much anticipation Professor Bruce Hood awarded the winning teams their prizes: First Prize: HIVe (Java download, video)

In HIVe the deception moves to a molecular level, where one player is a HIV infected cell disguised as a normal cell, seeking to infect other cells. The second player is an antiretroviral seeking to find and destroy the infection. The developers write, “The objective of the HIV player is to infect as many cells as possible before being caught by the antiretroviral drug player. We felt that the lifecycle of a virus is a constant battle of deception with the body and our game tries to capture this whilst at heart still being a game and being fun. We felt using HIV as the virus was important for its relation to scientific research and global social issues.”

Second Prize: Qualit-eye Control (iPad, video)

Based around the structure of the human eye and using the inspiration of the Thatcher Illusion, where it becomes hard to detect changes in an upside-down face. In this puzzle game, the player must select if a given object is really the same as its mirrored counterpart. The developers wrote of their game; “Given the theme of deception in science, we began thinking about how the human eye is an astoundingly amazing tool – yet deceptive. The human brain has to process a lot of data continually, so will occasionally make assumptions and take shortcuts, meaning we occasionally interpret false images in line with our expectations… So we developed Qualiteye Control, a game that puts the player in the position of a miniature scientist acting as a controller between the eyeball and the brain of Prototype X1.”

Wildcard Prize: InCogNeto (Android download)

A two-player game in which each player must connect cogs to a top wheel and at each turn select it to mask their actions or advance their plans. The developer wrote of their game, “…inspired by the idea of subterfuge, how we deceive ourselves and create false realities when we don’t have all the information… Strategy and tactics play an important role as you read your opponent’s body language, listen for audible clues (i.e. the rack moving) and use spatial memory to spot changes in the playspace. While your body is performing quality control of a widgetoid factory – you must decide what widgetoids are correct, and which ones are being falsely interpreted and need to be rejected quickly.”

The judging was based around the balance of the gameplay and the science so the judges looked for great games that integrated the science into the gameplay.

The judging was based around the balance of the gameplay and the science so the judges, Professor Hood, Dr John Williams, Head of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust and Dan Efergan, Creative Director at Aardman Digital, looked for great games that integrated the science into the gameplay. The games needed to be fun to play; they were not looking to develop a ‘worthy’ game, it needed to be fun in its own right. The aim was to make the combination of the science and the gameplay engage the player; those that did scored well.

The games were created on the 5th and 6th of October during the Wellcome Trust ExPlay Game Jam. The event, held over two locations, the Science Museum in London and the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, saw over 100 developers create 22 entries around the theme of Deception. Where possible, the games from the event are available online at: explay.co.uk/gamesjam and are free to play.

Links to this story:

• gamasutra.com
• n4g.com
• agreatbecoming.com
• theappside.com

ExPlay 2012: What can games offer science and society?

There is a write-up on Edge of the recent ExPlay session that Auroch Digital's Tomas Rawlings chaired:

It’s encouraging to hear from developers engaged with areas such as science and education who are so passionate about ‘traditional’ gaming values. The idea of closely aligning education with game goals – needing to know that copper conducts electricity in order to solve a puzzle, for example – is a simple, but powerful one.

Auroch Digital wants to say a huge thanks to the ExPlay people for making us feel so welcome and putting on such a great event!

The talk above happened the day before the games from the Wellcome Trust ExPlay games jam's shortlisted game's were showcased.

All About the XX Game Jam

We produced the first ever all-women game jam!  The XX Game Jam in was in London on the 26th and 27th October 2012. It was kindly been hosted by Mind Candy (the creators of Moshi Monsters) and has been supported by a number of organisations and people - UWE's Digital Cultures Research Centre, UKIE, Ada Lovelace Day, Connection Point Technology, PlayMob, London Games Festival as well as us at Auroch Digital.  The event has had some great coverage, including: Gaming Thinktank, GamesIndustry.biz, RantGaming & the BBC (also on video)

"Within eight days of the registration going live we had filled 40 spaces," said Debbie Rawlings, "We have a waiting list of about another 40 already so we could run another next week and I'm totally confident that would sell out too." ... The theme for games created at the XX Game Jam was clockwork, a nod to Ada Lovelace, the female mathematician credited with writing the world's first computer programs in the 1800s.

She worked with Charles Babbage, an inventor whose "difference engine", a complex calculation machine which he designed but never built, is now considered to be the earliest computer.

Debbie from Auroch was the prinicapl producer of the event while Tomas joined a great group of judges for the event: Jo Twist from UKIE, Suw Charman-Anderson from Ada Lovelace Day and Martha Henderson from Wellcome Trust.

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Game Jams are a great way to get experience in making games, and taking part in them is one of our tips for getting into the industry.

If you want to know how to get a job in the games industry, check out our blog post ‘How to get a job in video games’ for tips and info on how our team members all ended up in games.

Wellcome Trust ExPlay Games Jam a Huge Success!

The Wellcome Trust ExPlay game jam has happened and was, by all accounts, a huge success.  We're still collating the games produced but over the 24 hours of the 2 sites the event ran at over 20 games have been produced - and the quality is very high!  It was expertly opened by Professor Bruce Hood - who gave the theme - Deception. Here's a few images from the Bristol end of the event: Prof Bruce Hood @ Wellcome Explay Game Jam 2012 Wellcome Explay Game Jam 2012 Prof Bruce Hood @ Wellcome Explay Game Jam 2012

It also got a good preview on RockPaperShotgun:

My home represents the ideal. I am a gamer, my wife is a scientist. And combined, our interests make us THE GREATEST COUPLE ON EARTH. (Except she hates games.) Presumably modelled on our union is this weekend’s game jam from the Wellcome Trust – a science-themed event called ExPlay 2012. (The same Wellcome Trust who are supporting this year’s Make Something Unreal, as it happens.) Taking place tomorrow and Saturday in Bristol and London, it aims to combine the hardcore explorative processes of game making with the mysterious magicks of science.

PS. There is a video of one of the games online. More to follow!

Professor Bruce Hood to open the 2012 Games Jam

The Game Jam is now sold out, which is great news, but even better is that we've got Professor Bruce Hood to open the 2012 Games Jam and announce the theme!

We are extremely pleased to announce that Professor Bruce Hood, who holds the chair of Developmental Psychology in Society in the School of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol, will be opening the game jam and revealing the theme for the following 24 hours of frenetic game development.

Professor Hood is known to millions of people from his numerous books, articles and TV appearances including the 2011 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures broadcast on the BBC, continuing the venerable tradition started by Michael Faraday in 1825. His written works include two popular science books “SuperSense” (HarperOne, 2009) about the natural origins of supernatural beliefs and “The Self Illusion” (Constable & Robinson 2012) about the fallacy that we are coherent, integrated individuals but rather a constructed narrative largely influenced by those around us.

Professor Hood said, "I'm really excited to be unveiling the theme for the 2012 Welcome Trust Game Jam - science opens so many potential doors of inspiration for developers, I will be fascinated to see how it inspires new games from this event."

You can find out much more at Bruce's blog.

Science Game Jam Starts Soon

The joint ExPlay, Wellcome Trust, Science Museum, PM Studio games jam is due to start in few days, as the Huffington Post reports:

Not everyone can make a great video game - and even fewer can make one in less than 24 hours.

But that's just what 120 games makers are going to try and do in a few weeks, at the 2012 ExPlay Games Jam, hosted by the Wellcome Trust, Science Museum and Pervasive Media Studios.

The Games Jam - held simultaneously in Bristol and London - will give participants 24 hours to make a brand new game on a specified theme.

And yes - it has to be playable.