Thursday, March 09, 2006

TTA category Games

Games are hot. So you would expect many, many entries. But in reality this not true. The 2005 edition of the TTA received 34 entries from 17 countries. Top providers of games are UK, Germany and Ireland, followed by Austria and Bulgaria.

In this category three nominees were selected:
- Air Guard – Lubor Kopecky, SleepTeam Labs (CZ)
- Neon Racer: Augmented Gaming – Markus Weilguny, FH Hagenberg (Digitale Medien) (AUT)
- The Farm (Episode one) – Benedict Webb, Bournemouth University (UK)

Air Guard is a typical flight simulator. The producers have many different missions, two game modes and exciting sounscapes. The storylines are based on the second World War when the German Luftwadde attempted to gain superiority in the air.The heart of the game si a uniquely developed engine which creates open-air exteriors.

The Farm is the first episode in a series of downloadable games, which attempts to fuse interactive storytelling and animation with an adventure game. By solving puzzles and riddles a habitant of a health farm likes to escape from his incarceration. The graphic are beautiful; the humour, the satire and the absurdity is particular and challenging.

Neon Racer is a multi-user racing game for 1 to 4 players. It is played on a table top. Real physical objects are put on the table top in order to create a collission course. Spectators at the game can of course pick up an object and move it. The mission is to keep running avoiding physical objects for a certain period. The basic idea I saw before in the Red Bull Bar in Salzburg. When sitting at the bar one sees planes circling around; by putting a can of Red Bull on the bar, the planes avoid the object, while planes crash when a glass is put on the bar. As far as I understand the technology is different. Besides Neon Races produced a game on this principle, while the planes in the Red Bull Bar are a gimmick.

Neon Racer was selected as the category winner.

Tags: ,

No comments: