Flash educational game competition

Cambridge ESOL is offering a 32" television and PS3 as first prize in their competition to design an educational game in Flash for 10-12 year-olds who are learning English as a second language. Sony PSP consoles are offered as runner-up prizes.

Ian Cook, of Cambridge ESOL says:

"Creative approaches to education are so important when teaching children new skills. We’re looking for simple, fun games that will motivate children to learn and practise their English – a skill that will be of use to them their entire lives".

Competition judges include Gareth Hughes, Senior Designer at Sony Computer Entertainment's Cambridge Studio, Steve Harris of Anglia Ruskin University and Bafta-nominated games designer Dan Mayers of UCS.

The competition is open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students at UK universities. The closing date is 20th May 2010.

Further details are available here; here are the rules and the entry form is here.

JFGI: The Boxed Game is Dead

The mobile gaming market is looking increasingly erm ... mobile. While established mobile platforms from Sony and Nintendo are currently being eclipsed by johnny-come-lately handhelds in the form of the iPod Touch and the iPhone, Google's Android OS may be about to cut a swathe through mobile market and upset the Apple iCart as Android 2 includes free sat nav.

The new Nintendo DSi, which incorporates features commonly found in mobile phones in an attempt to make the platform more appealing and stem the loss of sales, is already redundant as Nintendo prepare to launch the DSi XL in the spring. The XL is a thicker, heavier version of the DSi, with larger screens and bundled apps (see this brief games news piece from yesterday's Games Review in The Guardian's Guide supplement). A visual comparison of the DSi and the DSi XL can been seen in this Wired article. According to this BBC news story, Nintendo DS sales have dipped by 15% over the last year while, in the same period, sales of iPhone and iPod touch have doubled. (That BBC news story, which moots Android 2 as a threat to Nintendo, Sony and Apple, also contains a nice video clip of Android's satnav running on a Motorola Droid but, irritatingly, the video clip isn't embeddable.)

Sony's response to the stiff competition was to restyle the niche PSP as the overpriced PSP Go (at £225, it's almost the same price as a £250 PS3) and introduce "Minis" -- downloadable games at affordable prices. (Click on the image for an insightful review of the PSP Go at ArsTechnica.)

The rise in downloadable content for handhelds may be the beginning of the end of content on a chip in a plastic box, as the overheads and distribution costs are considerably less. This is likely to have a trickle-down effect on the high street for box-based retailers like Game, and also an effect on the second hand market. Just how does one sell-on a download when you've finished with it? What do the people who rent you games games publishers think of the whole second-hand thing anyway? See, for example: Sony's Clampdown on second-hand games; Second-hand games sales are "a huge issue" -- Epic

On a less fraught front, the open source handheld market, specifically the GP2X, is keeping up with developments too, in the form of the GP2X Wiz, available at an affordable £129. There's a five minute video showcasing the Wiz's capabilities below:

Another open source development is the intriguing Pandora. It looks like a great device: a cross between a handheld console and pocket version of the netbook. It looks like a great device for developers and fiddlers, especially as the technical specs refer to an "un-brickable design with integrated boot loader for safe code experimentation". It has a TV-out (composite and S-Video) but not, apparently, a VGA port. The Pandora isn't quite available everywhere yet, but can be had for $330 from limited outlets. Check out the specs on the Pandora website, or see the preview video below.

Games Eden UCS Ipswich: 1st October 2009

The Games Eden exhibition went off virtually hitch-free (unfortunately, the black display boards were made of material that was almost impossible to fix the exhibits on to, but everything stayed up for the event itself). There was a very good turn-out. About 70 visitors came to the event, both UCS students and visitors from local schools (several school parties came, which was great).

The UCS games design students who exhibited their work and who were involved in the set-up (Craig, Dean, Amber, Andrew) will have gained some valuable experience that will be useful not only for the School of Arts' End of Year Show, but also for other times they might need to present their work. (The "Get Into Games" feature in the current issue of Edge magazine talks about the games course at the University of Gotland in Sweden, where building a portfolio and exhibiting work are key components of the course: "The exhibition teaches our students to present their work at events and to communicate the value of their games in a competetive climate.")

The speakers at the Games Eden event at UCS were:

• John McMillan, McMillan Technology: Setting up a Business.


• Martin Deacon, Senior Designer, Sony Europe and Jason Riley, Senior Artist, Sony Europe: Games, Game Design and How to Get Into the Industry.


• Matthew Applegate (Pixelh8): A Choice to Compute.

Here's John McMillan's presentation on setting up a business:

Here's a link to Matthew Applegate's blog post about the event:

http://pixelh8.co.uk/pixelh8-games-eden-ucs-waterfront/

John McMillan, who collaborated with Games Eden to help initiate the event, kindly supplied me with these Blackberry-snapped images of the evening: