Extra prizes awarded in Microsoft game contest

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 14 August 2007 02:28

Business IT - Technology

A high standard of entries led Microsoft to double up on the first and second prizes in its Dream-Build-Play XNA game development competition.

Equal first place went to David Flook (Blazing Birds - "an action-packed, robotic sports game modeled after the game of badminton") and James Silva (The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai - "a highly stylized game of mayhem and revenge"). Both won $US10,000 and other prizes

Runners up were Steve Olofsson (Gravitron Ultra) and Daniel McGuire (Yo Ho Kablammo!). Both received $US5000 and other prizes.

The original plan was that only the first prize winner would be offered an Xbox Live Arcade publishing contract, but that opportunity has been given to the four first and second place winners.

The competition was truly international, with in excess of 4500 entries from more than 100 countries. Flook is from Canada, Silva from the US, Olofsson from Sweden, and McGuire from the UK.

The contest called for games for Windows or Xbox 360, but they had to be created using XNA Game Studio.

"The games we received in the Dream-Build-Play competition are truly inspiring," said Chris Satchell, general manager of the XNA organization at Microsoft. "Created in just four short months using XNA Game Studio, these games demonstrate an incredible range of innovation, fun gameplay and technical achievement."

"We uncovered some remarkable talent with this contest and are pleased to include these original creations in our diverse library of games on Xbox Live Arcade," said Bryan Trussel, director of content and portals for Microsoft Casual Games. "It's aspiring, independent developers like these who are really driving our industry."

Screenshots of the winning entries may be seen at the competition website.