A six-student design team billing itself as Static Windmill won the $12,000 first-place award in last week’s UT Dallas Computer Gaming Entrepreneurship Competition.
The team also won a $1,000 Special Award for Excellence in Innovation.
The Fret Sensei team won the second-place prize and $7,000. The $5,000 third-place award went to Team Nightwing.
Static Windmill consists of seniors Devin Lewis, Steven Sherrod, Jacob Washenfelder and Eric Wenske, and juniors Katherine Hernandez and Jainan Sankalia. The team designed Skyward, a fantasy “Steam Punk” game in which a hopeful boy and girl jump from platform to platform, trying to get away from their old city in search of a better place.
Seniors Benjamin Campbell, Ryan Ricard and Brian Stephens, and junior Sanner Barnes formed team Fret Sensei. The team created an eponymous game that uses a real instrument in a fully interactive environment that can improve the player’s guitar skills.
Team Nightwing includes seniors Kyle Aldridge and Nicholas Wilson, and freshman Emlyn Cong. These students designed Cave Dreams, a platform game designed to appeal to casual players and avid gamers looking for new worlds to explore.
The competition was founded to reward teams of students for creating an original game concept paired with a strong business plan. Hughes Ventures donated the prize money to inspire and enable UT Dallas students to produce the leading game designs of tomorrow. Kingdon Hughes presented the winning teams with awards.
The competition is co-sponsored by Hughes Ventures, The School of Arts & Humanities, the Institute for Interactive Arts and Engineering and the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
More information on the competition can be found at http://iiae.utdallas.edu/ or http://atec.utdallas.edu/cgec.
More information: Computer Gaming Entrepreneurship Competition Web site, http://atec.utdallas.edu/cgec
Media contact: Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu
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| First Place & Innovation Award
“Skyward” |