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Put your skills to the test at Sudbury Game Design Challenge

Put your skills to the test at Sudbury Game Design Challenge
January 05, 2017

Do you think you could create a video game in just 48 hours? The Sudbury Game Design Challenge is the largest interactive media design competition in the north. This years competition takes place January 13-15 and 20 teams will be working together to create a video game on the platform of their choice. We spoke with the event organizers to find out more about the Sudbury Game Design Challenge.

What is the Sudbury Game Design Challenge? 

The Sudbury Game Design Challenge is a 48 hour competition between teams of programmers, artists, musicians and writers who must all work together to create a video game in under 48 hours. It’s our hope that by providing a welcoming environment under the spirit of competition that we’re able to hone creativity and teamwork within the competitors and see some really interesting end results.

Who can participate?

If you’ve got a flair for writing, artistry, programming, music, or even voice acting you can likely find yourself a spot in the competition! One of the elements that really sets game design apart from other art forms is getting a chance to see so many different skill sets all working together towards the same end goal. Distilling that kind of creative collaboration down to a 48 hour window can be challenging but it’s incredible to watch.

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How many teams are signed up/can sign up?

This year we’ve found it necessary to have a limit of 20 teams maximum due to space and budget concerns. Amazingly, we’ve long since filled up our team cap and now have a fantastic array of 20 teams hailing from all kinds of different backgrounds. We’ve got representation from highschools, universities, colleges, professional companies, hobbyists, and more than a few teams from out of town. Needless to say, we’re all very excited to see that our humble home town of Sudbury can boast such a huge turnout for an event of this nature.

We should also note that just because team signups are closed, does not mean interested individuals should give up hope! We have a matchmaking service on our site designed to connect teams looking for competitors, with competitors looking for teams.

What do the winners of the Sudbury Game Design Challenge receive?

Thanks to some excellent sponsors such as the CBC, TimeHero, and the Fortin Foundation we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to put together a pretty lucrative list of prizes this year around. As an example, our first place prize includes…

  • A Custom Designed Trophy
  • $1500 Cash
  • Professional licenses of industry grade game design software
  • A victory party at Let’s Scrabalatte Board Game Cafe
  • A display table at Graphic Con later this year
  • $400 in Steam gift cards
  • SGDC Scarves and Travel Mugs

In the future, we’re hoping to be able to offer even more to our competition winners. Specifically, we hope to help in terms of opportunities to get their games past the prototype stage and into the market.

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Who are the judges?

This year we have a truly impressive panel of judges who will be looking at every entry from the competition. We’re also really happy to be able to say that every single one of our judges this year are from right here in Sudbury (And the surrounding area)

Jamie Parent is a local Sudburian with many years of experience in the game design industry. Currently working for Raven Software, he’s helped develop numerous games in the Call of Duty franchise right from his home in Chelmsford.

Aaron Langille teaches Computer Science at Laurentian University and is chiefly responsible for the Game Design specialization which they have recently added to their program. He brings a wealth of academic knowledge, theory and experience to the panel.

Renée Higgins is a local professional within the IT field here in Sudbury. She’s been instrumental in numerous programming and game design workshops hosted throughout the city and brings with her a diverse background of game experience.

Juan Pancho Eekels, former lead level designer at Digital Extremes. He’s worked on many of the games in the wildly successful Unreal series, which have practically defined first person shooter level design ever since.

When did the Sudbury Game Design Challenge start? 

It’s a funny story really. These types of competitions aren’t new to Sudbury by any means. A handful of individuals, mostly from Laurentian University, have been participating in similar competitions for quite a few years. Personally I loved competing in these, going as far as being part of a team that took 5th place Nationwide. Early in 2015, however, some of the larger competitions ceased to exist, leaving a bit of a void for those of us who wanted to compete. And so one day I was at work showing my friend around the lab and he happened to come up with the suggestion of hosting our own little game design competition. “That sound’s fun” I thought. “Maybe we’ll get a few friends together and hammer out a game or two.”, I figured. Of course then the whole thing just exploded out of control and turned into a monster of an event. It turns out that right here in Sudbury we have a wealth of capable developers, artists, writers, and creators of all sorts… More than I think anybody is really aware of.

Come our first competition, which we hosted last January, we had over 50 competitors show up forming a total of 13 teams. More than double the turnout of any previous event of this nature hosted in locally. Now at this point we’re the largest game design competition anywhere in the North. And it’s been fantastic to see that happen.

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What types of games did the other winners create? 

We had some excellent entries come out of last year, but most notably was our grand prize winner. They came to call their game “Dojies” and it’s a bit like a mixture of Air Hockey, Dodgeball and Asteroids. It was showcased at our table last year at the Northern Game Expo and the most common question we received was actually: “Where can we buy it?”. The team in question haven’t done anything with the prototype since, unfortunately, but we are excited to see what the creators do in the future.

We’re currently working on a very Netflix like web system where competitors can host all of their games made during the competition. Totally free to the public of course.  Hopefully we’ll be able to share more on that front soon!

 To find out more about the Sudbury Game Design Challenge check out their website or follow them on Facebook.

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Emily Franceschini is former full-timer and lover of all things purple. In a past life, Emily worked as a marketing manager and spent her free time searching for the perfect cup of coffee. Now all of her time is free time and she's spending it exploring the world.

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