Dare Academy 2021 Finalists Announced

Abertay’s computer game design competition Dare Academy has today announced its 6 finalists who will be competing to win a £20,000 prize.

The creative competition – hosted fully online due to the pandemic - sees Abertay students form mini studios to create a new game which will be showcased in a live streamed final in September.

11 shortlisted teams pitched their prototype to a creative panel made up of senior executive producer Keeley Bunting (Outplay), former Dare Academy winner James Morwood (Bitloom Games) and Abertay lecturer Dr. Lynn Love, who have now decided who will proceed to the final.

The 6 finalists teams:

Tub Club with “Valley Peaks” – an Adventure Platformer
WallFox Games with “T-Wrecks” – a “runner” style exercise game
Team Blu Cow with “Escape the Uwuverse”- a Sci-Fi twin stick puzzle game
Queer <Coded> with “Homebound” - a queer story focused road-trip game
Team Crabertay with “Beats of Dischordia” a single player stealth-action rhythm game
Fish Tin Games with “Going Yonder” – a mini open world island adventure

All 6 teams will now proceed into hot-housing in July, where they will hone their prototypes with the help of mentorship from industry experts and professional businesses to help elevate their game to the next level.

Dr. Lynn Love commented:

We’re very excited to bring Dare Academy back, it was a huge loss to our calendar last year. We’ve been blown away by the enthusiasm and appetite for it by our students who certainly haven’t disappointed in what they have pitched yesterday.

I know I speak for both Keeley and James that it was an extremely difficult decision to select our finalists such as the quality we were faced with yesterday. Everyone should be very proud of themselves as the calibre of talent and diversity of concepts was excellent. Those who didn’t make the final 6 had so much potential and we hope to see them continue with their projects.

It’s going to be a busy summer and we can’t wait to watch our 6 finalst teams on their Dare journey and see these games later in the year.