All the games that are playable are now available to download from the GAMES section. Unfortunately the time contraints on the teams meant that the system requirements are that of a machine used to code on. All the software is available to download for free, but we appreciate that this makes it more difficult. So a massive thankyou to Andrew Sithers at Microsoft who has offered to rebuild the games to be playable by more people. We'll keep you up to date on our progress on that.
In the meantime, the lovely folks at Newspepper have finished editing together all the footage they took at X48 into this neat little film. Highlights for us include a sleeping Mike Reddy, a singing Marcus Lynn, and Team Aberystwyth getting massively excited by all things cheese!
Phew. Cor blimey. That was a gruelling two days, and also the most fun to organise and be at. Congratulations to all of the teams for some of the hardest work we've ever seen, as well as the most intense and imaginative. Without futher ado, here's who won and what with:
First Prize - Huddersfield Green's Seavolution. Prize: Student Passes for Develop Conference including travel and accomodation + a Flip Mino each.
Second Prize - Huddersfield Orange's Involved. Prize: A Flip Mino and a £50 Amazon voucher each.
Third Prize - Team Newport's Bellis Perennis. Prize: A Flip Ultra camera each.
Best Artistic Achievement - Huddersfield Orange's Involved Prize: 'The Orange Box' XBox game including Portal.
Best Technical Achievement - Team Teeside's Charles Darwin's Magical Voyage Prize: 'MegaDrive Ultimate Collection' of classic Sega games for the XBox.
The Game That Diverged Furthest From The Theme - Team Teeside's Charles Darwin's Magical Voyage Prize: A copy of On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin.
Best #x48 Tweet - RT @heenix And this one time, at XNABandCamp, I broke my code >.> #x48 Prize: An XBox Racing Wheel.
Cheesiest game - Team Hull's Evo Fighter Prize: Some damn fine cheeses.
Most ExperimentalGame - Huddersfield Black's Chronofix Prize: A kite each.
Best Unfinished Project - The Derby & London Met Team's EVO Prize: A crate of Relentless energy drinks for those extra hours ;)
We'll be posting all of the game information as soon as we've sorted through it and been to see our mums. Keep your eyes peeled, and get on the RSS if that's how you roll.
Well, we're approaching the 24 hour mark here at the University of Derby, and after a 2am Red Bull and milk run, we've finished encoding loads of videos and even had time for breakfast. We'll be carrying on with the filming all day as the student teams wrap up their games ready to present to the panel of judges (who are returning from their hotel sanctuaries as we speak).
While doing the rounds yesterday, we interviewed the X48 mentors about their initial impressions of the day, the games, and what they saw happening...
X48 is well and truly underway. The teams have been thinking, designing, and coding now for nearly five hours and there are some brilliant concepts floating about. As you may or may not know about X48, the games are to be made to follow a theme. This theme was kept pretty secret until today when it was unveiled by Mr. Charles Darwin seen here:
The theme, if it weren't already obvious, is EVOLUTION. It's Darwin's bicentennial you see, and Channel 4 Education along with Microsoft wanted to tie this all in and encourage original ideas that educate and inspire as well as entertain.
For we are still alive, and we are doing science!
We've been filming things ALL DAY with the Flip Ultras and Minos kindly provided by Flip Video. They're great little gadgets and we'll be giving some away as prizes. Speaking of prizes, we've not announced them on here yet...so here's what they're working for:
First prize - 4 passes to Develop including travel and accomodation, as well as a Flip Mino camcorder each. Second prize - A Flip Mino and £50 Amazon voucher each. Third prize - A Flip Ultra each. Check out the X48 Vimeo group where student teams, mentors and organisers will be uploading content like nobody's business. You can also keep up on the action on Twitter, and use the #x48 hashtag if you want to join in.
It seems it's XNA month this month. Not only have we been attached to our laptops in the name of XNA, but when we emerge we find that there's the previously mentioned XNA Barcamp in Birmingham in March, it's XNA Tutorial month over at GameDev.net (or at least it was supposed to be...it seems it's been put off until March 30th), AND some folks at the BBC made their first foray into developing a Dalek game for XBox using Game Studio 3.0.
It's only been a few hours since my last post, but more tickets have gone, and we've confirmed Dean Calver, Lead Programmer at Splash Damage, as an X48 mentor.