The Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition and the DigiPen Institute of Technology have announced the establishment of a scholarship to DigiPen Institute of Technology. Every member of the winning student design team for the Physics award will receive a $15,000 scholarship to DigiPen Institute of Technology, subject to admission to the program. Winners choosing not to attend DigiPen, or unable to qualify for admission, will receive cash and prizes valued at $5,000. The Physics Award judges engine, tool and A.I. programming, implementation and game play.
Now entering its second year, the Slamdance Guerilla Game Competition exists to recognize and reward the work being done by independent game designers, programmers and artists. To bring the competition to a wider audience of aspiring designers, Slamdance has added two student awards to this years competition the Physics award and the Philosophy award. The Student Awards celebrate both mechanical and aesthetic design. These awards expose the work of student game designers and artists to established independent designers, larger game design studios, publishers and distributors.
The DigiPen Institute of Technology, located in Redmond, Washington, is the world's first educational institution that offered a Bachelor degree program in Real Time Interactive Simulation with emphasis on game software development. DigiPen is focused on developing quality professionals from its programs who graduate with the skills and knowledge to immerse themselves in the game and animation development communities. Currently, DigiPen offers Bachelor's degrees in Real Time Interactive Simulation, Computer Engineering, Fine Arts in Production Animation and a Master's degree in Computer Science.
With this scholarship, we hope to provide talented and aspiring game designers with an opportunity to take advantage of the exceptional instruction offered by DigiPen, said Peter Baxter, president/co-founder of Slamdance.
Slamdances recognition and support of the independent game developer is very encouraging to up-and-coming designers, commented Chris Erhardt, associate dean of Continuing Education at DigiPen. I am personally excited about this student submission category because some of the most innovative and unique ideas in game development these days are happening outside of mainstream studios, and instead with students banding together to craft some surprisingly entertaining products.
Slamdance is a year-round organization dedicated to new artists from around the world. Started in 1995 by a group of upstart filmmakers, Slamdance Film Festival is a year-round organization dedicated to emerging artists and their vision. Slamdance has established a unique reputation for premiering independent films by first-time directors working with limited budgets. Slamdance has successfully established year-round ventures including the Screenplay Competition, Best Of Screenings in the U.S., Festival events in China and Poland, the Anarchy Online Film competition, the Dirty Dozen DVD Series (currently in its 7th volume) and short film productions dubbed $99 Specials. In 2004, Slamdance launched a teleplay competition in conjunction with fox21, a Games Competition and the Slamdance Media Group; a company comprised of distribution and talent-management units.
DigiPen Institute of Technology is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools andC olleges of Technology (ACCSCT), a national accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. More information about DigiPen is available by visiting www.digipen.edu.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
