Games students excel in international challenge

The IGCC is an annual event involving teams of students from various partner educational institutions with multi-cultural and multi-nationality backgrounds.

It is an intense two week invitation only competition focusing on game concept involving partners of educational institutions from around the world, with Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore hosting the event from 22 August to 1 September.

Ten students in the Bachelor of Design (Games) program and in the Master of Animation, Games and Interactivity travelled to the competition with four students winning Gold, Silver and Bronze prizes from Samsung Asia.

The students were Max Piantoni in the Gold team, Celeste Chan in the Silver team and Alex Floate and Jason Prentice in the Bronze team.

The gold and silver teams also won the two prizes based on public votes.

Master of Animation, Games and Interactivity student Piantoni said it was a great experience and that the students walked into the competition with nothing and came out with a prototype, new friends, and gold medals.

“I was very fortunate to be placed with an awesome international team, together we managed to design and prototype a funny game in which you play as a freelance-artist-woolly-mammoth who can only interact with the world using their trunk,” Piantoni said.

10 teams of 50 students with game art, game design and game programming skills presented prototypes of virtual reality games to a panel of judges from Singapore, France, Japan and Australia.

Thong Li Ping, who teaches in the RMIT digital media program led the mobility tour and was on the judging panel.

Ping said that RMIT’s students truly stood out in the event and have demonstrated excellent game design, communication and collaboration skills in their teams.

“They find IGCC to be a great learning experience and some are hopeful they could participate again next year,” Ping said.

Associate Professor Peter Ling, Deputy Dean (International) from the School of Media and Communication who organised participation in the Challenge said the students were excellent ambassadors for RMIT.

“They excelled as participants and presenters and blogged regularly about their experiences.

“RMIT was also inducted into the Challenge Committee and are now eligible to host the Challenge in 2018 or 2019,” Ling said.

IGCC 2017 will be hosted by Trident College of Information Technology in Nagoya, Japan and the School of Media and Communication hope to send students again to participate.

Story: Wendy Little