Student winners awarded hardware prizes as well as UE licences
BIRMINGHAM, UK – Epic Games, Inc., creators of award-winning games and game technology, announced from the Gadget Show Live, that Dead Shark Triplepunch, the winning team at Make Something Unreal Live 2013, has won a host of hardware prizes in addition to the main award of a commercial Unreal Engine 4 licence. The team, from Belkinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, blew away MSUL judges with their game Epigenesis, which was developed with Epic’s Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of the award-winning Unreal Engine 3.
In a surprise move, Epic Games also announced that Dead Shark Triplepunch and second-placed team Kairos Games have been given an Unreal Engine 3 licence specifically for the publication of their MSUL 2013 competition games.
After a week in which all four of the final teams in the contest worked on their games non-stop, presenting progress twice a day publicly on the show floor, Dead Shark’s third-person platform game Epigenesis won the votes of the judging panel, industry advisors and the popular vote from visitors to the show.
The judging panel comprised industry legend Peter Molyneux, now head of developer 22Cans; Mike Gamble, Epic’s European Territory Manager; Iain Dodgeon, Broadcast and Games Manager at the Wellcome Trust; Jo Twist, head of games trade body UKIE; Phil Wright, Head of Content Management at NVIDIA,and Matt Hill, deputy editor of T3 magazine.
Thanks to the generosity of the competition’s sponsors, NVIDIA and Logitech, all the finalists will go home with NVIDIA GTX graphics cards and Logitech mice, keyboards and gaming headsets. First placed Dead Shark Triplepunch also wins four of the high-end Seven series headsets donated by manufacturer Turtle Beach.
In an intense week at Gadget Show Live, all four final teams worked against the clock to complete their games inspired by the competition theme ‘Mendelian inheritance: genetics and genomics’, which was set by the Wellcome Trust. On finals day on Sunday, Dead Shark Triplepunch was able to present a very polished version of the game to an audience of the judges, hand-picked industry gurus and visitors to the show. The award of a specific Unreal Engine 3 licence in addition to the first prize UE4 agreement enables the team to complete Epigenesis and publish it through digital channels.
“It’s been clear from the early stages of the competition that Epigenesis has the potential to be a commercially viable game,” says Mike Gamble, European Territory Manager at Epic Games. “In giving Dead Shark Triplepunch a UE3 licence specifically for Epigenesis we want to enable them to bring this title to market in the shortest possible time and see them on their way to becoming a fully-fledged independent games development studio.”
“However, the judges felt that there were two games this year worthy of commercial release in the short term, and so we have also awarded Kairos with a UE3 licence in order to complete and publish its game Polymorph.”
In addition to hardware sponsors NVIDIA and Logitech, this year’s Make Something Unreal Live has also benefited from sponsorship from recruitment consultant MPG Universal, and graphics software specialist bluegfx.
Individual teams were supported by games industry mentors who provided support, advice and reality checks during the six months that the student competitors worked on their games. They could also draw on guidance from scientific advisors supplied by the Wellcome Trust.
Dead Shark Triplepunch were advised by long-established development studio Splash Damage, while Lucid Games, Climax Studios and Ninja Theory looked after the other teams in the final. Giving scientific guidance to the winning team was Josh Randall, leader of the Human Genetics Informatics team at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
“The support from our sponsors and supporters has played a huge part in contributing to the success of Make Something Unreal Live this year,” added Mike Gamble. “Our judges, experts and mentors have been deeply involved with the competition and this in turn helped our competitors to produce some really outstanding work on their games.”
About Unreal Engine
Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics, best-of-breed toolset and scalability across major platforms. Operating on nine platforms, including PC, consoles and mobile devices, Unreal Engine 3 is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for creating high-quality games, applications, training simulations, 3D visualizations, digital films and animated entertainment. Powering hundreds of games and integrated with two dozen leading middleware technologies, Unreal Engine 3 holds more than 20 technology awards, including seven Game Developer Front Line Awards and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards. The Unreal Engine also holds a seat in the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame. Epic recently revealed Unreal Engine 4, winner of multiple Best of E3 2012 awards, which offers unprecedented workflow improvements and graphical capabilities that provide unparalleled accessibility for developers building the next generation of games and applications. For additional information, please visit http://www.unrealengine.com.
About Epic Games
Established in 1991, Epic Games, Inc. develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company is responsible for the bestselling “Unreal” series of games, the blockbuster “Gears of War” franchise and the groundbreaking “Infinity Blade” line of mobile games. Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine technology has won dozens of awards and is available for licensing. Epic is continually recruiting top talent for its studios located in North Carolina, Washington, Utah, Maryland, Poland, Korea and Japan. Additional information about Epic can be obtained at http://www.epicgames.com.
About Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/
Epic, Epic Games, Gears of War, Infinity Blade, Unreal, Unreal Developer Network, UDN, Unreal Development Kit, UDK, Unreal Engine, UE3, UE4 and Unreal Tournament are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.