In less than three weeks’ time, four teams of Make Something Unreal finalists will be applying the final spit and polish to their genetics-themed UDK games at Gadget Show Live in Birmingham. On-stage to meet them and mumble advice in their ears when they present updates to the crowd will be Peter Molyneux, Miles Jacobson, and Dave ‘GTA’ Jones, alongside a raft of other UK games industry names.
Other industry figures confirmed for the event include:
- Sensible Software alumnus Jon Hare.
- Anton Westbergh, CEO of Sanctum creators and former Make Something Unreal competitorsCoffee Stain Studios.
- Clive Robert, boss of sim and tycoon specialists DR Studios.
- Ella Romanos, head of Plymouth’s indie finest, Remode, co-founder of Extended Play and board member of industry body TIGA.
- Dave Jones, currently director of Denki, formerly top man at DMA Design (later Rockstar North) and Realtime Worlds.
- Fable series mainstay Kostas Zarifis, now head of Kinesthetic Games, them of Kung Fu Superstar.
“I’m delighted to welcome our games industry experts to Make Something Unreal Live 2013,” said Epic’s Mike Gamble. “We hope that their guidance will prove inspirational and supportive for our finalists, who will be working nonstop on their games throughout the show.”
Gadget Show Live begins on April 2 and runs through til April 7, which means our contestants are going to have to pace themselves. To the winning team however, the spoils: a copy of Unreal Engine 4, and a license for digital distribution.
Each of this year’s entries are themed around ‘Mendelian inheritance: human genomics and genetics’, and the teams have had the support and advice of biomedical charity the Wellcome Trust throughout the last stages of the competition.
The four final games are named ‘Epigenesis’, ‘Polymorph’, ‘Mendel’s Farm’ and ‘Beings’, and you read all about them here. Which do you best like the sound of?