{"id":3059,"date":"2024-01-03T10:16:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T10:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/?p=3059"},"modified":"2024-01-03T09:36:07","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T09:36:07","slug":"student-competition-war-games-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/student-competition-war-games-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Competition: War Games Season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Students from across the Computer Games Development BSc took part in the Imperial War Museum\u2019s (IWM) Game Jam as part of its ‘War Games’ season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students at Westminster enjoy many exciting opportunities and activities outside of the classroom. This helps to support their in-class learning and enhance their employability with practical hands-on experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition challenged teams to create and develop an original war video game, inspired by certain exhibition objects from IWM\u2019s collections and stories of conflict from 1914 to the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The games were to feature unexpected and under-explored stories of conflict. The competition brief also wanted the games to embrace creativity, empathy and diversity in their design and challenge expectations of what war video games can be. Teams had 1 week to create and develop their original video game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Games were judged by a panel of experts from Imperial War Museums, the Historical Games Network, University of Glasgow Games and Gaming Lab and World of Tanks. Prizes were awarded for Best Playable Game and Best Game Concept, with runner ups and special mentions in each category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The teams<\/strong> and their games <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students from Westminster made up two teams who took part in the competition. ‘The Fun Brigade’, who consisted of both first and second year students and ‘Astral Finish’, made up of third year students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Fun Brigade created a video game titled Sorrow<\/em> inspired by the collection item the White Poppy, a symbol of protest against war and conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The game is about a veteran\u2019s daughter, Anne, who searches an attic for objects that relate to her father\u2019s service in World War One. When interacting with the objects, users are transported into her father\u2019s shoes and are able to explore and contribute to the war effort, as well as relive wartime conditions through the eyes of a soldier on the front line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ines Lobo, Games Developer on the team, said: \u201cI gained new programming skills and learned a lot about the past. I feel incredibly excited to show others the world that our team put together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team Leader of The Fun Brigade, Oliver Guy, said: \u201cI was able to develop my skills and experience in a technical capacity with regards to the Unity game engine [a cross-platform game engine] and programming in C# [a type of programming language].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Westminster’s other competing team, Astral Finish, created a game called Generals Gambit<\/em> inspired by the Spitfire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The team made a conscious effort not to create a predictable shooter game but instead developed a card strategy game, with the Spitfire used as the trump card. The idea was to impose a sense of responsibility and weight behind player\u2019s actions, as many soldiers’ fates were decided by commanders and their strategies during the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bartosz Tarasiewicz, Team Leader of the Astral Finish team, said: \u201cThe IWM games jam was less of a competition to me and more of a chance to see how well me and my team can work together. I learnt a lot when it comes to managing the team and designing a project that synergises well with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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