BAFTA ceremony for video games stars

 The School of Computing and Information Technology students won a national competition called Dare to be Digital,a video games development contest organised with Channel 4.

The team, named DarkMatter Designs, will go up against two other teams for the BAFTA ‘Ones to Watch’ award. The winner will be announced at the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards on Tuesday 10 March 2009 at the London Hilton, Park Lane.

The four Wolverhampton students and one from the University of Birmingham designed Boro-Toro, a platform puzzle game which uses an innovative control system using Wii technology.

The competition, Dare to be Digital, was a rigorous selection process which took place over ten weeks last summer. At the end the teams competed for cash prizes, and Boro-Toro was named as a winner.

Project manager Adam Westwood, who graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from the University last year, said: “It’s been a fantastic journey and we are all really looking forward to the ceremony, it will be an honour to attend. We really didn't expect to get this far when we started the competition so we're delighted to be nominated and that we are able to attend with the support from the University."

Stuart Slater, Principal Lecturer (Digital Media & Games), at the University’s School of Computing and Information Technology, said: "Once again we see the real creative talent of students from the School of Computing making a real impact in the computer games arena. Their dedication and drive shows that West Midlands University students studying games development are some of the best in the UK.

Adam’s team mates are Owen Schwehr, who also graduated last year, Graham Ranson and Yves Wheeler, who are still studying at Wolverhampton, and Matt Booton, from the University of Birmingham.

The University of Wolverhampton is the regional partner for Dare to be Digital 2009.

The game’s website is http://www.boro-toro.co.nr/

Further information

Picture: A screen grab from Boro-Toro

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