Today we announced the five winning games from the Dream-Build-Play warm up competition.
I have to admit being a little nervous as to what this was going to turn up. With only a couple of weeks development time, plus the restriction of having to base everything on the Spacewar starter kit, how much would people really be able to achieve? I hoped we'd get at least a couple of decent entries, but wasn't about to bet on it.
Come Thursday night, I found myself glued to the screen in the meeting room next door to my office, watching the judges work through the enormous pile of entries. Wow. I wish we'd had more than five prizes to give out, because there were simply too many great things to choose between.
Some people kept the space setting, while others just used pieces of the Spacewar code, but what really blew me away was how imaginative and fun the resulting games were (and in more than one case, visually and technically stunning as well). These are not just clones or remakes, but contain some truly original ideas which I'd never come across before.
I decided to work on XNA because I believed there was a pool of talent and creativity out there, waiting for the right opportunity to unleash it. I think I may just have been proven right.
You guys rock!