StartGame @ Dare Protoplay 2010

Dare Protoplay – Edinburgh International Conference Centre, 13th-15th August 2010

Dare To Be Digital is a games scheme run and suported by Abertay University (in Dundee), and Dare Protoplay is the showcase competition for student game development teams from Universities and Art Colleges.  It’s a recognised charity and relies on donations and sponsorship to run.

Protoplay acts as the finale in the competition, where the public get to vote on their favourite game, after trying out all of them on offer.  This year’s competition had 15 teams duking it out to be crowned winner and to be featured in the 2010 BAFTA game awards as “Ones To Watch”.  The teams had to come up with a concept, present it, then were given 10 weeks to project manage it, and produce a working prototype demo of a game.  Oh, and they’re only allowed 5 members to a team.

It’s an internationally-renowned competition and teams from all over the globe can take part, but in most instances the Scottish Government sponsors teams which have at least one Scottish student (the Scandanavian, Chinese and Indian teams were like this). There were two teams entirely sponsored by their own universities, however; the American and Irish teams.

There’s a lot of creativity on show, and some impressive stuff had been produced within the two-and-a-half month schedule. It’s events like this which help to foster creativity and broaden out the spectrum of games, pushing boundaries, getting more people interested in developing games, and generally helping out the industry by letting people try something new or different.  In short, we at StartGame really really like what’s being done with this type of thing, so we’re going to support it in whatever way we can.  The best way for us is to write about it, so that’s what we did – well, I did anyway, with the help of Mezino, while LS, Stewie and Hodgi were all off doing other things with their time.

Anyway, Mezino and I went to check out what was going down, play some games and get some interviews with the teams (which we videoed, and you can see in a future article).  We had a brief go at Realtime World’s APB (now sadly defunct) and saw the UK’s first Kinect showcase, but unfortunately we didn’t get a go on it because we were too busy being awesome, pressing flesh and getting some great stuff for you guys to enjoy.

Oh, and the current score between us is 2-1 (to me!) in case you wanted to know.  Well, it’s kinda obvious the younger generation would be whupping Grandad Mezino’s backside.  It’s a young person’s game, gaming is.  Just look at your nan with a DS; sure she could beat you in Crossword Face-Off, but stick in Tekken, and the match is pretty much yours.

Mezino: Dear Reader, I believe that was a gauntlet being dropped. The thing is, I still managed to beat him at one game. I think I smell a vs. feature. That or I’ve not taken my medication.

peespee63: Oh that most definitely IS a gauntlet being thrown down.  You know it.  Oh, and take your pills like a good grandpa, that’s it.

So, the games:

Legendary Crusaders

Various Artists

Legendary Crusaders is a multiplayer co-op action/adventure puzzle game with a retro feel and a sense of proper 4-player cooperative gameplay.  It plays very well and may cause some arguments among friends as you work your way around puzzles.  The pop-up book visuals are inspired and work very very well, making it one of the best looking games at the show.

Death Inc.

Grimnir Games

Death Inc. follows a newly-hired Grim Reaper on an adventure up through the ranks at Death Inc.  It’s an action-adventure-side-scrolling-puzzler with a very nice, if a little awkward at first, phase shifting mechanic: phasing inbetween the Spirit World and the Real World to get around obstacles.  It’s full of humour and would be ideal on the PSN minis platform.

Chayya

Gazhab

A black-and-white “racer” where you guide a furry/spiky alien through a city, avoiding light, which he happens to be sensitive to.  White lights kill you slowly, red lights are insta-kill, blue ones slow you down and green speeds you up, and the goal is to finish the map as quickly as possible.  Nice concept with some MadWorld inspired visuals, but doesn’t seem to be very deep.

Dice Rolling

King Of Dice

A head-to-head strategy board game where two players take it in turns to light up all their squares using the faces of their respective die.  It’s pretty looking enough for the kids, but is a little bit one-dimensional, and the network-only functionality seems like it’d be a pain for regular users, but it’s got some potential.

WiiKick

Nevermind Games

Interesting concept whereby you strap a Wii remote to your foot and use it as part of the kicking interface to play penalty shootout, or just smash stuff.  The two player mode is rather impressive and it’s been nicely realised, and I can see the technology being used in future football based games.  A slight worry might be TVs up and down the country being smashed by flying Wiimotes.

Hella Umbrella

Ramblin’ Wreckage

Platforming turned on its head on Android phones.  Think along the lines of ‘And Yet It Moves’, but a hella lot cuter.  Customisable characters and the nice umbrella as a parachute mechanic make for an interesting platforming game, maybe one for the kids, but if it’s only on Android phones it won’t have the biggest market.

Dyed World

Shark On A Bike

All the colour has been drained from the land, and it’s up to you, a young apprentice wizard, to restore it all back with your magic paintbrush and destroy the evil colour-sucking creatures with water.  The cutesy colourful action platformer is really refreshing to see and utilises a paint mechanic to progress in a level.

Sculpty

Team Tickle

A clever use of the iPad to produce a lovable shape-manipulating platform game.  You control an amorphous blob-like creature and use different finger shapes to change his form to escape the clumsy giant Ooja-Ooja, who only wants to play.  A brilliantly-executed platformer with a bit of variety that uses the multi-touch screen on the iPad brilliantly.

Twang!

That Game Studio

What’s the best part about Worms?  Yeah, the Ninja Rope.  Now, take that and slap it into a horizontal multiplayer racer, and you have Twang!  The goal is to eliminate your opponents by swinging as far forward as possible, utilising your grappling hook to slingshot your way through a level.  Bags of fun and makes for a great party game with a few beers.  Also, there’s a robot character named BIOS.  WIN!

The Inkwell Chronicles

Abnormal Creations

Action-puzzler which reminds us of Paper Mario and Epic Mickey.  It’s a 2.5D Sidescrolling game where you control Nybb, a young boy with a magic pen, and use plane-shifting powers to manoeuvre around obstacles and an eraser to erase bad stuff, while using your pen to help solve puzzles.  It’s quite dark and a little bit creepy, but solid enough.

Mush

Angry Mango

A cute, cartoony platforming game which uses emotions to navigate levels.  Extreme happiness lets Mush float up, while anger lets him smash his way through the forest world of Movera, and sadness brings him back down to
Earth.  Developed on Windows 7 phone, it’s a lovely little romp through the forest with visuals reminding you of something a bit like Critter Crunch

Epoch Defence

Bazooka Duck

Think Command and Conquer 1930, then throw in time-shifting ala Echoshift, and you have a ridiculously difficult PC RTS.  Failure is the only option in the first few rounds, but luckily you get 3 sets of units to fend off an attack.  The first round sets out about 5 units, and in subsequent rounds you must send in new units to save them and protect your base from the alien attack, making the back-in-time thing a really nice feature.

Grrr!

Bears With Jetpacks

RTS-Lite game for the Wii pitting two players against each other with three-man teams consisting of Boxing Sharks, Machine-gun Crabs, Jetpack-laden Bears, and Rainbow-vomiting Emo Unicorns (named Gary).  Now, the last “unit” is made of win, so it gets points in our book, and it’s also a lot of fun to play.  Expect some arguments coming out of the mayhem.

Silent Symphony

Creative Genius

Music never really gets utilised as a proper game mechanic well enough, but Silent Symphony, an action RPG, looks very promising indeed.  The main character has Synaesthesia, which allows him to see sound as colours, and he can use his magic flute to solve various puzzles and move obstacles.  Rather interesting concepts at play here and could be worth watching in the future.

Weatherman

eleMENTAL

Puzzle platforming on a 2D plane with 3D models.  Basically, use four different elemental powers to solve puzzles and move obstacles after your character crash lands his plane and picks up a magical talking staff.  Make it rain, bring on a drought, set off a really big gale or bring on a cold snap to solve puzzles.  Also a bit of precision platforming thrown in for frustrations sake.

Well, we were suitably impressed by everything that was on show, and it was hard for us to pick a winner out of them all, so our top 3 ones to watch are going to have to be:

Mezino’s : 1. Death Inc.    2. Twang!    3. Grrr!

peespee63′s: 1. Legendary Crusaders    2.Death Inc.    3.Twang!

The winners for Dare 2010 were: Twang!, Mush and Sculpty

Big thanks to all the guys who helped us out with the interviews and getting info and pictures.  Well done to all the teams, and best of luck for the future, we hope to see those games on shelves at some point.  Also, massive thanks to Jane Graham for letting us video and for providing us with the showreel you see up at the top.

Mezino: Hopefully thanks to the coverage and brief synopsis of the prototypes we’ve given out more people will come along and make this event even bigger in the future. I hope that peespee63 and myself have inspired you to come along to next year’s event.