This jam is now over. It ran from 2021-01-14 12:00:00 to 2021-03-18 23:59:59. View 17 entries

Outline

The Games Innovation Challenge, brought to you by NSE and sponsored by Barclays, is a game creation challenge open to university students across the UK. You have nine weeks to create an innovative playable game in line with the challenge theme.

For those that want to get competitive, submissions will be judged by a panel of industry experts with a prize pool of £5,000 for the best entries!

Theme

In keeping with NSE’s role as the UK’s official university esports body, the theme for the inaugural Games Innovation Challenge is:

Competitive Games

We want to see games that pit players against each other in some shape or form. Keep in mind that competitive games take many forms: players could compete through leaderboards, time trials, or head on. For those hoping to be crowned winners of the inaugural challenge contest, additional points will be available from the judges for a short plan that shows how your team envisages a competition being run. Remember, this is a games innovation challenge so think about innovative ideas you can include.

Rules

Your team may include as many members as you like (we recommend five) but must submit registration forms and meet the eligibility requirements to be eligible for prizes.
You can develop your game using any platform you’re licensed to use provided you submit something playable at the end.
Your game concept should new, but you may use prebuilt assets and code provided you have permission to do so.
You must submit before the end of the submission window and may not update your submission once the submission window is closed.
Everything you create and submit is yours but, if you win, you’ll let us use video/images of your game to promote the challenge in the future.
We want all games to be playable by everyone, so no NSFW content and games must be in line with our code of conduct.

Eligibility

The NSE Games Innovation Challenge is intended for UK university students. However, we recognise that you may want to include friends that are not studying or are still at school. To be eligible to participate in the challenge contest, the majority of your declared team, as well as your nominated project lead, must be currently enrolled on a level 5 course or higher at a recognised UK higher education provider.

For the avoidance of doubt, you don’t need to be studying any specific course or be attending the same university as your teammates provided you meet the above criteria. If you don’t meet these requirements we’d still love to see your creations but unfortunately, you won’t be eligible for prizes.

If you have any questions about your eligibility you can reach out to enquiries@nse.gg

Judging

Eligible submissions will be judged by a panel of industry experts from the world of game development and publishing. In line with the competition theme, this year’s judges will also include professionals from the world of esports.

Judges will assess submissions based on the criteria below so make sure to consider these carefully when planning your project:

Technical Quality: How well does it run and how challenging was it to create?
Look and Feel: How do the sound and graphics make you feel?
Entertainment: How fun is it to play?
Innovation: Is there a twist? What’s unique about it?
Competition Plan: How well will the envisaged competition plan work?

As is often the case, you might not quite finish your project. If this happens, submit what you can and try to show the judges your vision for the finished project.

Timeline

Submissions open: 14/01/2021
Submissions close: 18/03/2021
Judging from: 19/03/2021
Winner announced at NSE finals: 09/04/2021

Prize Breakdown

First Place - £3,000
Second Place - £1,250
Third place - £750

Entry Checklist

Gather your team and come up with a name. Decide on your project, which can have a separate name to your team name.
Create your game and project plan. The project plan must either be a Google Doc or Google Slides presentation.
Submit your game on this page.
Fill out the Team Registration form. This is also where you submit your project plan.
Finished!