Dare to be Digital 2011 teams named

The 15 finalist teams for the 2011 Dare to be Digital competition have been announced following a lengthy selection process that saw applications from more than 70 international universities.

The final team members taking part in this year’s competition hail from 16 different countries including China, Denmark and the UK. They will be making games for iOS, Kinect, PC and Windows Phone 7.

The continuing development process for the finalist teams will be mentored by games industry professionals from Dare’s Developer Accord, including Blitz Games Studios, Codemasters, Crytek UK, Jagex Games Studio, Rare, Rockstar North, Ruffian Games and Sony Computer Entertainment.

Teams will head to Abertay University in Dundee to begin games design on Monday June 13th and continue for nine weeks, when the finished games will go on show at the Dare ProtoPlay festival.

“Dare provides an important platform for fostering and bringing on new talent to the videogames industry,” said Andrew Semple, Rockstar North studio director.

“Rockstar is honoured to once again lend its support and provide mentoring to this year’s competitors.”

Blitz Games Studios education liaison Kim Blake shared the sentiment, saying: “We’re delighted to once again be supporting Dare to be Digital as part of the Developer Accord.”

“It gives students invaluable experience of working together to develop creative and innovative games and we’re looking forward to supporting the teams over the coming months.”

Dr Louis Natanson, academic director of the Institute for Arts, Media and Computer Games at Abertay University, said: “The standard of applicants is extremely high this year. It takes a right game idea, the right team and the right pitch to convince the industry judges.”

“The finalists for Dare to be Digital 2011 now have a fantastic opportunity to start their career in computer games development.

“We also like to thank all the games industry judges who have spent their valuable time assessing the applications and will mentor the teams when they arrive at Abertay University in June.”