I’m part of a team that won the YOUROPE Game Challenge – a Europe-wide Games for Change competition to create digital games that encourage the building of sustainable environments.
Four of the nine team members took our game, Anthrocratos, which challenges players to create a sustainable environment that keeps a country’s citizens happy, to Strasbourg for the final.
The final five games were selected by industry experts but the winner was decided by the public and we were delighted to take 53 per cent of their vote. Winning was really satisfying.
The idea came about as part of a GCU project to make a game for a client. Our client was the University of Oxford’s Dr Joost Vervoort and our goal was to create a game which is fun as much as it is educational. We wanted to give players the opportunity to shape an area and a society as they pleased, while making them interested in the topics. When we saw the YOUROPE criteria, we knew we had the perfect entry. We’re continuing work on the project and hope it will be published.
I have always been interested in video games and had studied IT at home in Italy but that wasn’t the direction I really wanted to go in so I began researching from home gaming programmes in the UK. I am very pleased I chose GCU as it is so multicultural and the staff are its greatest asset. I have had so many opportunities to travel; I visited GCU’s partner UMass Boston and visited game development studios in London. It’s a great experience and an insight into real-life practices. GCU’s industry links are invaluable – from hosting Game Jam to hearing from the many industry experts who visit to speak to students about their experiences – and help us learn from their mistakes!
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