Games Developer UK 1998 Competition
August 17, 2019, at 05:15 AM (0 comments)
Title: Games Developer UK 1998 Competition Author: mgarcia Date: 2019-08-17 13:15 +1000 Tags: Community, Events Comments: Open
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About GDUK
From GDUK's archived site: http://www.gduk.co.uk.
The UK Games development industry has a great reputation and has developed many top games. If we are to maintain this lead in creativity, new talent must be uncovered! The GDUK Competition gives all games enthusiasts, those in or out of work, students from schools, colleges and universities the opportunity to make their mark in an industry currently worth £5 billion worldwide.
There are cash prizes in six categories as well as the chance to win the overall award of Best UK Games Developer 1998. Note that the newest category to be added is for Best Net Yaroze Game, this carries a cash prize of £1000. Closing date for Registration is 30th June 1998 and for Submission of your entry 31st August 1998.
The Game Developer UK Competition is organised by Scottish Enterprise in collaboration with the SGA. The organisers are grateful for support from all sponsors:
- DMA Design
- Eidos Interactive
- Hasbro Interactive
- Infogrames
- Inner Workings
- KLM UK
- Reality X
- Red Lemon
- Scottish Enterprise
- Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
- VIS Interactive
- Visual Sciences
GDUK 1998 entrants and winners.
Image courtesy of Rob Swan.
- Nick Slaven (~nslaven), on his members site wrote
- GDUK '98, mystery prize for anyone who can spot the Yarozers in the above article, there's at least 3 - I'll give you a clue, Dominik Diamond is not one and neither is the large Scotsman at the rear.
Games Developer UK '98
Original Sony's competition information archived here.
And mirror here at http://www.netyaroze.com/yaroze/indexmc2.htm
The Best Net Yaroze Game Wins £1,000! The Games Developer UK Games Team is delighted to announce a new Category in the Games Developer UK '98 Competition, 'The Best Net Yaroze Game'.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has agreed to provide an additional prize of £1,000 for 'The Best Net Yaroze Game' which will go to the best entry within this Category. Entrants will also be eligible for the overall prize of £5,000 for the Best UK Game Developer '98.
The GDUK Competition gives all games enthusiasts, those in or out of work, students from schools, colleges and universities the opportunity to make their mark in an industry currently worth £5 billion world wide. There are cash prizes in five categories as well as the chance to win the overall award of Best UK Games Developer 1998.
Closing date for Registration is 30th June 1998 and for Submission of your entry 31st August 1998.
If you would like to enter into the 'Best Net Yaroze Game', then all you need to do is e-mail info@gduk.co.uk or visit http://www.gduk.co.uk/ GDUK will then forward an information pack and Registration Form to you by post. Please note that the Competition is open to all UK residents.
Let us know if you are entering by mailing PS_Yaroze@playstation.sony.com
In addition to the GDUK Rules and Regs, please note the following additions. 1. Participants into 'The Best Net Yaroze Game' Category must be registered SCEE UK Net Yaroze Members. 2. Net Yaroze entries should be placed on the Member's Home Page by 31st August 1998 which is the Competition closing date. SCEE will arrange for all Net Yaroze entries to be put onto gold disc which will then be submitted to GDUK for judging purposes. 3. Entrants into 'The Best Net Yaroze Game' Category should indicate this clearly on the GDUK registration form and entrants should also e-mail their intention to enter the competition to Net Yaroze administration at SCEE PS_Yaroze@playstation.sony.com
Nick Ferguson's Recap
From Nick Ferguson's Diary:
19 January, 1999
This diary entry is dedicated to Sarah Bennett at SCEE, for thinking of myself and Mr Frosty when those spare tickets for GDUK came up!
....
I returned to university in October a very relaxed person - and waited with not-particularly-bated breath for news of GDUK. Turned out I wasn't nominated (duh) - but good things lay in store anyway.
On the morning of the Game Design UK awards, I was rudely awoken by a fairly excited-sounding James Rutherford telling me we MIGHT be getting to go to the GDUK awards, as a couple of people scheduled to travel with the Sony party had pulled out at the last minute. I guess we were picked because we were 1) fairly local (to Stirling, that is) 2) students (and thus well able to skip lectures for the opportunity to dine with the cream of Scottish game design talent) 3) GDUK entrants and 4) keen gits. Well, one confirmatory phone call later that afternoon and we were on the train to Stirling faster than you could say, er, Bannockburn. A night of feasting, quaffing and industry hob-nobbing lay ahead!
We arrived at the Holiday Inn Express at about 5 o'clock, giving us a few minutes to chat with some of the nominees, including Net Yaroze heroes Chris Chadwick, Nick Slaven and Rob Swan. The other nominees were a mixed bunch - some quiet, reticent chappies, some a bit outspoken; Mark Gallear, with a design nomination for "Roman Gladiators", was a bit loud and abrasive (so we were glad he didn't win in the end), and French lass Florence Richer, who had created some multimedia demo (she described it to me but I think that just made my understanding worse) was an interesting character. After I'd finished my beer, I hopped into my DJ and boarded the bus to the awards dinner and ceremony!
The reception was in a big hall at Stirling Castle - there was a video screen displaying what I think were sequences from Red Lemon's upcoming "Aeronauts" title and a web-browsing set-up (with just the Scottish Games Alliance site on it). I ended up chatting to Andrew Dobson, one of the nominees for "Best Music" - turns out he was more into film music, but thought writing something for a game would be fun. Nice one! Amid the throng of people I spotted Dominik Diamond - and memories of watching Gamesmaster after school (or uni, for that matter) couldn't help but get my spine a-tingling! Let's get a decent games-related program on the telly again, shall we?
A few glasses of mulled wine later, I was sat on the Sony table between James Rutherford and some journalist from PC Zone. This journo proceeded to get visibly pissed over the course of the evening, prove incapable of operating his minidisc recorder and generally coming over as a bit of a tit: I hope if I ever end up being a reporter, I'll have a bit more self-discipline than that. I had a chat with Pete Passmore, who told me that his first degree was in Psychology! He's an interesting guy, I wish I'd spoken to him a bit more. Also at the table were Sarah Bennett (down, DEnnis!) and Pascal Jarry from SCEE but they were a bit too far away for me to talk to them much. Nick Slaven was on our table, but the kilt-wearing Rob Swan and Chris Chadwick had been dispersed - along with the other nominees - to the numerous "company" tables (DMA, Eidos, Red Lemon, Vis, etc).
The food was yummy and the ambience suitably "Scottish" - in a fire-lit, macabre kind of way, but that was fun. There was a presentation stage set up at the end of the hall, and after a few introductory speeches (one by EIDOS bod and those 80's Fighting Fantasy books guru Ian Livingstone) the awards commenced. Well, it's old news now but congratulations to Chris Chadwick for becoming 6 grand richer in the space of ten minutes, and commiseration's to Rob and Nick. Still, I guess the publicity (and resultant job offers) mean nobody really lost (especially Mr Chadwick - buy us a pint, Chris)!
After the awards I chatted to a couple of the non-Yaroze entrants: Kenny McAlpine (who won Best Audio) and the Winner of Best Game Design (whose name I forget) - I remember we shared a common bond: he also LOVED Rare and the old Ultimate Speccy games! I see they have since signed up to work for Inner Workings - I have to remember to win a category if there's a GDUK next year! I also chatted, briefly, with Dave Jones of DMA (James R. was hogging him) and Jim Woods, DMA's development manager. I found out a wee bit about the new Edinburgh Studio, and I wasn't so far gone as to make an arse of myself, which was nice (James, on the other hand, actually asked if he could "steal" Dave Jones' name-place from the table - har har)! Finally, for those who maintain Scots are stingy, I'd like to add that two Scots were the only winners to buy me a drink (me-ow!).
We were bussed back to the Holiday Inn and I sat up in the lobby for a looong time with guys from assorted Scottish games companies (inc. a be-kilted Chris Van der Kuyl from Vis). Can't remember too much about this, but I did talk to Chris Wright from Inner Workings about how just how fantastic Gameboy Zelda was, and received a few interview tips on "how to be a good game designer". I eventually fell into bed at about 5 or so in the morning, and woke up to the sound of everyone jumping on the bus back to the airport. Later, guys! One bog-standard travel-lodge breakfast later, and my GDUK odyssey was pretty much over. Just before we left, James and I had the chance to bitch up the arse from PC Zone to Scottish Enterprise's GDUK organiser Liz Ibbotson - that was most satisfying.
My advice for any future GDUK attendees? Well, most likely you'll be there for a real reason (unlike me), so just enjoy the ride and remember to TALK to people, especially important people who are in charge of big companies. I really only talked to the DMA guys, and had a Dave Perry-esque exchange with Kirk Ewing from Vis. When will I learn? Overall, it was just fantastic to be in a room with so many "names", to meet some like-minded bods and to feel (however unwarranted) that I had somehow "earned" my position in all this. I love the games industry more than ever now - every few months I seem to get a bit closer to it - and if GDUK did one thing for me, it reassured me that this is what I want to do.
Playstation Pro February 1999: loser/winner.
Chris Chadwick wins amateur national game programming competition
Image courtesy of Nick Slaven.
Programmers have, rightly or wrongly, often been given a bad name and been branded bores, misfits or ranksters. To Chris Chadwick, however, this matters not as he's now £6,000 (pounds) richer and is Game Developer the Year for 1998.
Chris Chadwick's game, Blitter Boy, actually won in two categories - Best Net Yaroze game and Best Overall Game. His entry topped the pile of over 150 entries submitted on all formats. The awards ceremony was held at Stirling Castle on November 5.
Net Yaroze, in case you're new to the PlayStation is a home development kit that anyone can get hold of - Chris, who used to program in BASIC in the days of the ZX81 learned how to program In C (which Is what the Net Yaroze uses) and won the Developer competition despite his game still being at an early stage. Well done, Chris, but try and get out a bit more from now on, eh?
The Herald article: World-wide goal for Scottish games industry.
From the 17th of November, 1998.
Image courtesy of Nick Slaven.
World-wide goal for Scottish games industry
THE Scottish games development community has celebrated the conclusion to its talent-fostering initiative, the Games Developer UK 98 competition. The winners were announced recently at a dinner held in Stirling Castle.
From the original pool of more than 600, a panel of experts whittled the entries down to five winners. Entries were judged against criteria including originality, creativity and playability.
Chris Chadwick, from Yeovill was presented with the top overall prize of £5000(pounds) for his entry “Blitter Boy in Operation Monster Mall”. Many of the industry figures present at the awards believe that Chris has an excellent chance of achieving his ambition which is to have a career in games development.
The competition was the brainchild of the SGA and Scottish Enterprise who used an e-mail launch directly to 50,000 students and a specially constructed web-site to provide further information to potential entrants.
Ray Macfarlane of Scottish Enterprise, said: "Software development is one of Scotland's fastest growing sectors and entertainment software is a hugely important element within that. The companies that make up the SGA represent Scotland's future - a future where indigenous Scottish firms are capable of employing their talents and skills to compete and succeed on the global stage."
Other award winners were Richard Gatehouse and Andy Southgate for best game, they won £500 (pounds) each; Inga Paterson for best artwork/animation, £1000 (pounds); Stuart Graham, best game design, £1000 (pounds) and Kenny McAlpine, best audio, £1000 (pounds).
It is hoped that the Games Developer UK competition will go on to become an annual event with adequate sponsorship.
Further details of the competition can be found at gduk.co.uk and the Scottish Games Alliance website is scottigames.org
A PDF version of these scans is also available.
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