Dare to be Digital 2012
polycounter lvl 7
I'm in the process of getting a team together for this year's Dare to be Digital 
for those who don't know, it's a 10-week game dev competition held over summer at Abertay University, very well supported by industry bodies and pretty prestigious.
The application process alone is going to be a mission, so I'd love to hear from anyone who's taken part before, especially if you have some advice to give
anyone else considering applying this year? If so, good luck, and share your thoughts here!
for those who don't know, it's a 10-week game dev competition held over summer at Abertay University, very well supported by industry bodies and pretty prestigious.
The application process alone is going to be a mission, so I'd love to hear from anyone who's taken part before, especially if you have some advice to give
anyone else considering applying this year? If so, good luck, and share your thoughts here!
Replies
http://playablepixels.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/surviving-dare/
Good luck with getting in. I tried to get in 2 years in a row without success which was a shame, and having worked in the industry for well over 6 months now I've missed the chance. But I know a lot of people who took part in it and had a great time. If you get in take full advantage of it, because out of the thousands of people who apply very few get in.
My big tip for the application process is mainly not to show off any modelling/texturing skills etc as they have no interest at this point. All they want to see is unique ideas and nice 2D artwork to back it up
Good luck!
Could you elaborate on this? Not sure what you mean? Do you mean Dare's focus has turned more towards developing casual market prototypes? Most of the games (I think all actually) in my year were pretty impressive full 3D games with some very nice 3D art assets.
In my experience you aren't going to see industry insiders all that much (they've got their own jobs after all, and have to travel quite far for it) so entrants should be pretty capable.
Also we saw industry insiders 2-3 times a week, each visit comprising of 2-4 professionals.
Also I remember emailing a tech director in Rare and getting a reply on an issue so they would have been there email wise too.
Maybe thats changed though?
So, as others have pointed out, the most important thing to advance is probably a solid game idea. In 2009 the target audience was kids, don't know if that has changed, but if not that might be a good idea to keep in mind.
Good luck, hope you make it!
Yeah this is still the case, the competition doesn't try and stop you from making mature games and you are pretty much free to do what you like but 70 - 80% of the people who play it at protoplay at the end are ~14 and under so building a game that they either can't play or won't want to play would be a huge error.
Plus imyj has done dare, I believe he got Bafta nominated at the end and he was there last year helping us out by mentoring and representing crytek/passing on wisdom at protoplay so he's a good guy to ask questions also.
Any chance you guys have demos or youtube vids of the games you created?
Follow this ladies advice, I still play their game!
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Although I can't give feedback on peoples game ideas (since I am involved in the competition) I can answer general questions about the competition.
As mentioned above; the target audience is the types of people who will attend the final showcase: Protoplay. The majority will be kids and teens and it's true that in the past, the games which were successful were casual games aimed at kids. Sometimes you get some surprises but generally speaking - you want to do your research and figure out what will appeal to the judges and the people playing your game. Ideally you want a quick prototype which is easy to play. I would recommend that anybody applies. It's not so much a competition, it's more an experience where you'll grow and mature in a ridiculously short amount of time.