As part of our CMAT Activities Week, we invited CMAT students to compete in a regional computing competition. Our very own William Grant, Riley Hornby, Lewis Horner and Henry Scott teamed up as ‘Vengeful Puppy Studio’ to design their game 'CHROMA' which won the FXP 2021 ‘Best Game Concept & Design’.

Within CMAT schools, two other Ely College teams came second place. All year 9 students studying Computer Science and BTEC in Digital Information Technology took part in the game design competition, although their progress was hampered by software issues, students worked in good spirit within their teams and produced notably creative designs. Some more are shown below.

    

Check out the full story below:

Over the past nine weeks, more than 300 school and college students from across Cambridgeshire have been working to create their own video games as part of FXP Festival 2021, a county-wide game design and development competition for young people aged 12-19. Student teams were asked to work on three core elements of video game creation: game narrative, game concept and design, and the coding of a playable game. 

     

Seventy teams submitted games for judging, many from CMAT, and teams from Ely College, Sawston Village College, St Peter’s School, Swavesey Village College and Sawtry Village College all collected prizes for their outstanding entries. This year, teams had the opportunity to succeed across four categories, with prizes available for secondary and FE level teams. Awards included:

• Best Game Concept and Design: Winners ‘Vengeful Puppy Studio’ from Ely College received game keys for ‘MLB The Show 21’, courtesy of Sony’s Creative Service Group (CSG) as well as a swag bag of goodies from Frontier.
• Best Game Narrative: ‘The Legend of Melon’ from Sawtry Village College won game keys for ‘MLB The Show 21’ and Frontier swag.
• Best Game Production: ‘SPS CS Club’ from St Peter’s School secured the win for the best playable game in the FE category, with the secondary level prize awarded to ‘Team 12 Jack, Paul and James’ from Swavesey Village College. These exceptional teams were awarded vouchers for gaming clothing brand, Insert Coin, as well as a game key for Table Flip Games’ Surefooting.
• Best in Class:  ‘The Mengerists’ won the FXP trophy for best effort across all areas in the FE category and ‘The Timekeepers’ from Sawston Village College took home the prize for the  secondary school level. As well as receiving a personalised 3D trophy, both teams won a selection of exciting Jagex merchandise including LEGO Dragons, bluetooth speakers and RuneScape notebooks. 

Helping students to explore the world of game design and development, FXP Festival, which is a registered charity, encourages students to connect STEM skills learnt in the classroom with their dream future career aspirations. To support teams through the three core modules of the project, experts from the industry stepped forward to offer their expertise:

• Game narrative – led by Raymond Vermeulen, Narrative Designer at Genjoy, a Scopely Studio
• Game concept and design – led by Mark Ogilvie, Creative Director at Jagex
• Game production – led by Matthew Holland, freelance writer, game designer and developer

Alison Taylor, FXP Festival Co-founder, Trustee and Managing Director of Conscious Communications, comments: “I am completely blown away with the quality of submissions we received this year for FXP Festival 2021. The enthusiasm of participating teams was infectious and they should all be extremely proud of their efforts. I would like to say a huge thank you to all of our sponsors, judges and, of course, all of the teams themselves for their hard work. We can’t wait to get started on planning for next year!”

Discussing the submissions, Jagex Creative Director, FXP Festival Trustee, and Judge, Mark Ogilvie says: “There were some strong, stand out games presented to us that are truly worthy of becoming real professional games – a high level of design, passion and programming ability was clear to see within the submissions and many of them made me laugh out loud as I was judging. The bar was set incredibly high with the winning games and it was a pleasure to play them.

“I’ve loved every minute of this year’s competition; despite being run in a virtual format I feel like the spirit of what makes FXP Festival so great has been ever-present this year, and the teams have all championed and displayed exactly what it’s all about; teamwork, creativity and having fun!”

Due to sponsorship from Jagex, Qualcomm, Arm and Anglia Ruskin University, FXP Festival remains completely free for all teams in Cambridgeshire wishing to participate.