National award for Bath student’s computer game exploring mental health
Salmaan Zhang, a final-year computer science undergraduate from the University of Bath, wins ‘Games with Purpose’ award from Games Innovation Challenge 2024.
The awards, which are sponsored by UNiDAYS and delivered by National Student Esports (NSE), challenge college and university students across the UK to create the most innovative games possible in a mere eight weeks. A shortlist of submitted entries are then judged by industry experts against strict criteria including technical quality, innovation, entertainment value, look and feel, social impact and marketability.
Screenshot from Guilt for Dreaming, created in just eight weeks by a final year University of Bath computer science student. Image courtesy of Salmaan Zhang
This year, NSE invited leading esports and gaming professionals to judge the games in person at the NSE office. They selected winners in seven separate categories, each of whom received a prize of £500.
Salmaan Zhang, a final-year BSc computer science undergraduate from the University of Bath, won the ‘Games with Purpose’ category for Guilt For Dreaming – an abstract adventure game in which the player delves into the protagonist’s dreams and nightmares as they face aspects of their past.
Salmaan Zhang says: ‘Guilt for Dreaming is a mostly nonviolent video game that explores themes of mental health, friendship and identity. I wanted to make a game that explored mental health in a more PG-friendly way as most games often approach it as a fairly heavy and dark subject matter. Balancing my time between studying, working on my dissertation and making the game was tricky, but it was great being able to use my programming skills to do something I really enjoy.’
He is now planning another, much larger game project and hopes to turn his skill for game development into a career. ‘Game design is one of my lifelong passions and was one of the reasons I chose to study computer science,’ he continues. ‘This prize has spurred me on to make my dream of becoming a professional games developer a reality.’
Alex Coulson, Managing Director at NSE, adds: ‘It was incredible seeing the quality of games submitted to the Games Innovation Challenge and it wouldn’t have been possible without the crucial support from UNiDAYS. This is just the start of helping UNiDAYS form deeper relationships with the NSE community through bringing value to their time at university.’
William Avery, Account Manager, Gaming, Tech & Entertainment at UNiDAYS, who was one of the judges, says: ‘I had a great time playing the games the students made during the judging session and seeing first-hand some of the immense talent the NSE community has to offer, especially within the game development space. We are thoroughly excited to see what the partnership holds for the future and how we can enrich students’ day-to-day lives.’
Students from the University of West London won overall first place in the challenge as well as both the ‘Gameplay Guru’ and Technical Genius awards for rhythm-based arcade-style game Soundcaster.
A team from Moseley School and Sixth Form won the Innovation award for their gravity-bending game Gravitwist, while Zombie shoot ‘em up Defiled West won students from Swansea University the Design Muse award. Party Jam, an in-browser game creation and sharing platform created by a team from the University of Sussex, won the Commercial Gem award. A number of other teams and their games also won honourable mentions. For more information about all the games, see the NSE website.
The judges this year were: Cassie Hughes, Director at Nox Lumina, Community Manager at The Noir Network and Co-Founder of Black Twitch UK; Cristian Leon, Senior Lead Environment Artist at Sledgehammer Games; Helena Watson, EMEA Player Communications Lead at Dreamhaven; Julien Houeix, Senior Sales Partnerships Manager at Twitch; Vivian Naydenova, Brand Manager MOBA & Strategy in Northern Europe Publishing at Riot Games; and William Avery, Account Manager in Gaming, Tech & Entertainment at UNiDAYS.
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