If you’re here, dear reader, I’ll assume you’re a bit of a games fan.

As a result, you really do owe it to yourself to head Dundee-wards and spend the next seven weeks camped outside the University of Abertay’s library.

This is the venue for the 2009 Dare to be Digital competition. Dare challenges teams of students to create a new and original videogame in only ten weeks.  Teams can provide their own idea or, this year, choose one from ideas submitted by the public.  Teams then have ten weeks – in Dundee – to create a working prototype of their game, which is then demoed over three days during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The winning teams are chosen by judges from within the industry, along with visitors to the Dare ProtoPlay event in Edinburgh.  The winners are then automatically entered into the BAFTA ‘Ones To Watch’ award, which was created especially for Dare.

I’ve been involved with Dare – on and off – for the last seven years.  This year, I’m mentoring the teams and offering sage advice, design tips and marketing sound bites, as part of Denki’s participation.

Which is why I get to spend one day every other week, talking to the teams, playing with the games and meeting some of the most creative, talented and disciplined people I’ve ever met in games. Spending a day here should be mandatory for each and every coder, artist, producer, publisher, journalist, blogger, podcaster, gamer and marketing hack working anywhere in gaming.

Dare should be games industry’s Wimbledon, it’s World Cup and it’s Olympic Games – all rolled into one.  It should have excited coverage from every major magazine, blog, TV station and newspaper in the UK.

The games should be feted, previewed, reviewed, dissected, discussed and released.

It should be a celebration of new talent, an explosion of creativity and hard work.

OK, those are already true…

However, it’s been missed by much of the games world. So if you’re even remotely interested in games and what creative new teams can do in just ten weeks, you really need to check it all out.

-Brian

Dare and several of the teams are on Twitter, if you want to follow along:

Dare to be Digital
Inertia Games
Pixel Pirates
Gentlemen Of Fortune
NPR3
CottonBall PhsyX
NooBeez
DeRail Entertainment
Digital­_Colony
The Butterflyers
Virtual_Horizon
Bubblegum Games