The Change The Game Design Challenge, a competition for the development of mobile game concepts, which Google Play held among schoolgirls, has ended. The games of the finalists show that this audience highly appreciates a deep plot, a serious message and the opportunity to learn something new in games.
The first place in the competition was taken by a platform puzzle about a werewolf child Mazu. The game was invented by an eleventh-grader named Kristina. This is a platformer with a strong emphasis on the plot component, in which the player must explore the forest and help its inhabitants, while the game character will develop and grow up.
Mazu Concept Art
The winner stressed that she is not only interested in the entertainment component of the games, she perceives them as “a form of interactive art that can change culture and unite people.”
In addition to Mazu, four more projects made it to the final of the competition. Eighth grade student Dakota came up with a collection of mini-games on the ecological theme EcoVerse, where players populate the landscapes of abandoned planets with plants.
Ninth-grader Lily proposed a game concept for the competition The Other Realm, which is described as a mix of RPG and puzzle. The theme of the game is similar to previous projects: the action of The Other Realm takes place inside a giant tree that needs to be cured. According to Lily, she wants her project to be an alternative to games where everything is focused on shootings and violence.
Concept art EcoVerse and The Other Realm
High school student Erin’s project is called Symphony.
This is a musical game with a touching story about a girl and her sick grandfather, a musician.
Finally, the last finalist, eleventh-grader Lauren, came up with a Palette game with an educational bias. The player needs to combine colors to get the right shades of colors. When passing a level, players are shown an image of some classic painting.
Symphony and Palette concept artTrips to the E3 conference and the Google office in Los Angeles were organized for all finalists, and they also received scholarships to participate in the summer camp of the educational project
Girls Make Games. The winner of the contest also received a scholarship of $ 10 thousand for college, and Google Play sent $ 15 thousand to her school for technical equipment.
Google Play held this contest as part of its campaign to overcome gender inequality among mobile game developers. The jury of the competition included representatives of leading gaming companies, including Warner Bros. Games, Jam City, Pocket Gems and EA Mobile.
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