Contrast 2008: 24 Hours Of Being Green

Hoang Thi Minh Ngoc | hoang_thi_minh_ngoc@nus.edu.sg
the ridge news
A NUSSU Publication

Sept 16, 2008

Contrast, a 24-hour game design competition with an environment theme took place between Sep. 13 and 14, 2008 at the National University of Singapore’s School of Computing.

There was a large and diverse group of students taking part in the competition this year, including 23 teams of 106 students from NUS, the Nanyang Technological University, the Singapore Management University and various polytechnics.

The aim of the environmental theme was to increase the level of environmental consciousness amongst the youth in Singapore as well as let the public know that fun and environmental education could be inculcated through games.

Furthermore, the CNM Society hopes to convince students that they do not need to be adept in IT skills in order to design games. Creativity, inspiration and perseverance are just as, if not more important.

Students giving a presentation of their game at Contrast 2008 (Photo credit: Hoang Thi Minh Ngoc)

Lee Woon Seng, a third-year student from School of Computing, and the winner of the Most Entertaining prize last year, said, “The competition offers students fun as well as something to add into the portfolio when applying for a job.”

Nguyen Bao Khanh, a second-year CNM student, said that although she had no background of designing, participating in the competition brought her new interesting experience.

“After joining the workshop opened before the competition, I discovered my potential in designing and tried to practise more often,” said Nguyen.

Mr. Alex Mitchell, a lecturer from the CNM Programme as well as one of the organizers of the competition, said, “This year’s participants were very enthusiastic and imaginative. Overall the judges were very impressed with the ideas for the games which are so imaginative and interesting.”

“The fact that these teams were able to come up with interesting game ideas, and implement them into a playable game within 24 hours, demonstrates the strong creative abilities of tertiary students in Singapore,” he added.

Contrast is jointly organized by the Communications and New Media (CNM) Society and Game Development Group (GDG) from NUS, and the IGDA Singapore Student Chapter (SSC).

Participants hard at work working on the designs of the games (Photo credit: Hoang Thi Minh Ngoc)