Although it is against the rules I am misusing my special privileges to make this post here.

Utrecht University in the Netherlands is organizing a game creation competition under the name Creative Game Challenge. It is a competition for all students in highschool (VWO, HAVO, VMBO) in the Netherlands and it runs the whole year. The deadline for submitting games is April 7 and the prize ceremony will take place at the end of June. The theme of the competition is Beasts and you must use Game Maker to create your game. The total price money is 10.000 Euro, divided over some 10 prizes, so there is a lot to win.

So if you are living in the Netherlands and going to highschool you are strongly recommended to participate in this competition. For more information, the precise rules and prizes, and to register for the competition, go to the Creative Game Challenge website (in Dutch).

Utrecht University is organizing this competition because from the coming year on it will offer a track on Game Technology with the Computer Science bachelor. If you are interested in studying Game Technology at a University in the Netherlands, you can find more information at www.gametechnologie.nl (in Dutch).

Mark

*Reports the topic.*

Good luck to all who submit a game in this challenge.

Awesome, I may actually compete in this competition!

PS. Anyone interested in working together with me?
I'd like to work together with a creative person, who can also sprite/draw.

Animals, mythological beasts, savage humans? all beasts but which should we use? The site isn't too clear on that...

Any kind of beasts you like. That's why we picked this theme. It gives you many possibilities.

Here's a translated page, in case your Dutch is a bit rusty:
Here

This sounds fun. I think there are lots of eligible members here, so I hope lots of them enter.

Mark, I don't see anything in the rules about having team mates outside of the Netherlands, except that they must be in secondary school. Is this correct?

Unfortunately all team members must be students at Dutch schools. The goal of the university with this competition is to get more people in the Netherlands interested in Computer Science. So that is the target audience.

Even though I won't forgive you for not letting me participate, I do understand why.

Good luck, Dutch people!

I take that, as always, single player gameplay is required?

Well, that makes sense.


Why would you assume that? All I see are requirements for theme, language (Dutch or English), and file size (< 25 Mb). Rules

I really like the prize structure. There are four big top prizes, and also separate prizes for things like originality, best interface, humor, etc. It opens lots of possibilities and directions for contestants.

For once in my life, I wish I was Dutch. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with! Good luck to all those people who are entering.

Why only VMBO, HAVO and VWO? I'm on a MBO and i find it a shame i cannot participate in something usefull and educational as this.
Ofcourse i could just form a group and make a game with them but it would just not feel as educational since there will be no deadline and we make our own theme.

Ofcourse it might seem very unfair if people from MBO's and such could join too and hand in a project, but isn't a student from VWO already better educated in mathematics and such then a student from VMBO, i did VMBO (Because i was too lazy to do any higher) and i have friends who do/did VWO, there was a huge gap when i talked about maths with them. It would clearly give VWO students a big advantage over others since making games involves alot of math.


I would simply love to join the competition and group up with people i do not know yet, brainstorm a bit for an idea and then start working on it.
It is not important if i win or not, i just want to do it for educational purposes.

Please consider adjusting the rules so more people can enjoy competing in this contest and learn important things about working in a team, it can even be usefull for people who aren't even going to do anything in the game industry.

keep up the good work Mark.



-Rijnders

This is exciting! Seems a great competition, in which I will most likely participate. I've entered 2 times before in a similar Dutch student competition (Make-a-Game), which isn't been organized this year. So the Creative Game Challenge just comes at the right moment for me!

Don't MBO programs come after secondary school? And this challenge is limited to secondary school students.

Besides, if the goal is to encourage more students to enter computer science (like Mark said), they'd want to focus on those paths that are more likely to lead to university. That's my guess anyway.


Maybe, depending on their game design. But it's certainly not an unfair advantage. If someone chooses to learn more math, you can't fault them for using it.

well, I agree with Rijnders, since VMBO students can't enroll in university anyway...

I know from experience that it is nearly impossible to find a teacher that knows anything about game development and design on secondary. All they will be able to do is see if the students reached milestones and did what they where supposed to without actually being able to give support.

It would also give the whole computer science a better or atleast different look, since you interact and learn from someone who is already in it.
I also find it very hard to believe that any random student from secondary will just decide to make a game for a competition with a program they don't know anything about without having that support they need, even when they are interested.

The three years of ICT i had in secondary i had come across gamemaker 2 or 3 times wich i had to make happen myself by talking to the teachers.
It was horrible, every single time. The teachers simply did not know what they where doing.

For starters, they had a manual on gamemaker basics blantantly ripped from the internet, not even edited ( it even had major spelling mistakes ).
Everytime a student had a question regarding gamemaker they couldn't answer it, they simply had to start learning how to make games themselves too.

Luckily for all the students in the class i knew how to work with the program but i quickly became the 'teacher' and i had to answer everybodies questions and help them out. I didn't complain because it was actually fun and i learned things from it but it took up all the time i had for my project and i had to do it at home, the teachers even asked me to help them out. Go figure.

I just don't see any random student pick it up without having a coach (in this case a teacher) being able to provide support.
Secondary school just don't give students who are interested in computer related things a proper taste of what creating games would be like or they do it completely wrong and might even steer students away from it.

To me it would just be so much more educational, progressive and most important fun to have a person who is already into and interested in making games coach a team or participate in one to help the others out and make everything move smoothly and give a much better impression.

Why all this? I feel excluded from undergoing something educational and to help secondary school students make the decision.

Don't you think this might be partly the motivation for the contest? Perhaps they'd like to change this, and encourage more students and teachers to get involved. According to Mark, that's the whole idea!

Also, the contest website emphasizes the importance of getting teachers involved. I suspect the organizers will contact teachers' groups about this too.


Why not? We have dozens of new members join GMC each day, and a large number of them are in secondary school. Historically, the GMC attracts lots of members in the 9 - 17 age group. I don't know why things would be any different in the Netherlands.

And the EU 10,000 in prizes should help too.

I would give it a shot if the reward was big enough, and I could enter (That is, if I had never used the program).

You are a loose cannon, I advise moderators to suggest to better moderators (no offense on the crappy ones) to advise administrators (no offense to moderators, you just can't do the recommended job) to advise Mark to put himself on moderator preview (no offense to the better moderators who will hand down the previews to the crappy ones)

I dont really get how to sign up for this,
but when I do, I think I make a chance

Did you visit the website Mark posted? Just click the tab marked "Inschrijven" and fill out the online form. Then on the next pages, you must list your teammates (if you have any), give info about your school(s), and info about your coach (if you have one).

My advice is to take a little time and get organized before you register.