Last month the winners were chosen for Red Bull‘s Flash game building contest for college students, Red Bull Build. The student teams submitted game proposals, and the winning team is now building their game in a state of the art development studio built just for them in Orlando.
The team will be riding a red bull buzz for 21 days while making the game. During that time the judges from the contest will dropping in to offer some encouragement, advice, but mostly just hang out with the team. This weekend Jesse Warden and I will be there as the team wraps up their first week on the project. I can’t wait to see how it is going and hopefully will get the chance to post a few pictures.
While I’m psyched to see what come out of three weeks worth of work from these individuals, I’m suprised that there is little competition. The weeding out mechanism appears to be the ability to write well formed proposals, rather than measuring ability. I guess in the real world professionalism is just as important as genius.
I personally would like to see this dark horse group go against a group of ‘veterans’ from flashkit and ultrashock.
It is pretty realistic though. The games that I have done professionally were done because a company liked the proposal. The only difference is that we could also show an active portfolio (but this is a contest for college students), so that isn’t really going to happen.
I’ve seen plenty of geniuses who couldn’t communicate their ideas to others in a compelling way. All the genius in the world won’t help you be successful if you cannot inspire those with the means to make it happen. Unfair? Maybe. But it’s a fact of life.
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I’m not sure what else, besides a proposal, such a contest could be based on. To say someone is a genious but can’t write a proposal… sure. But this is just more evidence to my belief that the #1 skill you need “today” is to be able to communicate visually and personally. I’m not saying that so much as “it’s a hard life, get used to it” but rather because I so often hear about how math and science is so important I think it’s worth reminding people that communication is what’s really impoortant. Anyway, the above contest sounds great!
Sounds like it could be an all out war.
One of the most important skills needed in today’s information based economy is the ability to communicate. Lacking this, is like running with a single leg.
Nice site I found … Plan on coming back later to spend a little time there.
hope the event went well. I look forward to reading the follow-up blog
Where are the pictures?
Yes I want to see pictures from this to, it sounds like a lot of fun
The games that I have done professionally were done because a company liked the proposal.