AU Diary: Polished Design

Forgive the appalling pun in the headline. By the time you read this, I’ll be on a plane to Poland.

I’m attending the Imagine Cup, an annual technology and design competition held by Microsoft for university students all around the world. The aim, according to the organisers, is to “to encourage students around the globe to imagine a better world in which people are empowered by technology.”

And, of course, that means games!

This year’s Imagine Cup finals are being held in Warsaw, Poland. Six teams – from Belgium, France, Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and the Phillippines – have made it through to the finals.

My role in proceedings is to be one of a five-person panel of judges overseeing the Game Design category. I’ll be spending two days assessing what they’ve been working on for the past year and, in conjunction with the other four judges (including Rare’s Gregg Mayles), deciding who wins.

I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m really looking forward to it. It should be fun!

Over the next week, in between wearing my judge’s wig, I’ll be bringing you many of the site’s regular posts while continuing to bring you my impressions of the games I saw at E3. However, filling the editor’s chair back in Sydney, keeping his finger on the pulse of local news, will be… Junglist.

Yes, Junglist is back!

I thought you’d like that.