BAFTA Opens 2015 Young Game Designers Competition
YGD are go
Heyo – if you don't follow the BAFTA Games Twitter feed you might have missed this one – the Young Game Designers competition has come round again and is now accepting entries.
The competition is for 10 – 18-year-olds (which I suppose is one definition of young, although I still get ID-ed I'll have you know) who have ideas for games or fancy trying to make one themselves. Even if that's not you, I figure you might have some younger relatives or kids of your own who might be interested in taking part.
To that end it divides into two categories. One is the Game Making Award which is for people who're already starting to explore the process of making games – it looks at game creation skills and whether you've chosen a suitable platform for what you're trying to do. The other is the Game Concept Award – that one's about coming up with and explaining a great concept for a game. The winners of this one will then have a team from Abertay Uni help them turn it into a working game.
Other categories added for this year are the YGD Mentor award which is there to celebrate inspirational people involved in teaching young people the skills to be game designers and the other is the YGD Hero award which is like a more nebulous version of the mentor award – someone who supports young game designers.
I've just been poking about in last year's entries and the concept for Ink caught my eye. It's by Caitlin Wilkie, Anna Ward and Jenny Yule and features stable-girl Kitana who's off to save a prince from the Ink Monster. My favourite part is the idea you can weaponise writer's block, using your pen-sword to deal mighty damage to nearby foes. If that ever happens IRL my postman will probably get exploded, though.
Image: BAFTA/Jamie Simonds