CODING A WAY TO THE FINALS…- Great Walstead School –

29 Oct 2018

One of our talented students has made his way through to the final round of the age 10 – 14 year old category of the BAFTA Young Game Designer competition with his game ‘Maggie’.

The game is a demo in which you explore Maggie’s world by growing and shrinking. The ten levels in the demo start easy but get more challenging as Maggie moves through them.

Harry describes the game as “A minimalist puzzle platformer in which you guide ‘Maggie’, a cute red cube, through a series of levels using only her ability to stretch. Good luck!”

Harry’s game has made it through to the final round of the 10 – 14 year old category, alongside 10 other young coders, of the BAFTA Young Game Designer competition.  This means he will attend the finals in July and all the visitors will be able to play his game and the games made by the other finalists.

We spoke to Harry about when he decided to enter the competition and what he needed to learn to create ‘Maggie’.

“In Easter Holidays in Italy we were thinking about what my brother should do for his BAFTA entry and he thought it would be good if I entered as I am now 10. I came up with the idea of a puzzle platform game and as my brother had used Unity before and I wanted it to be 3D Unity was the best software. I had never done C# before so it was very hard to begin with, especially the ray casting.  I had to design all the blocks and then code the movement and a lot of other things.”

One of Harry’s friends has played the game has commented.  “It is a good strategy game. I enjoyed it. I found the gravity block interesting.”

Harry’s game can be found on the BAFTA YGD website at the following link

http://ygd.bafta.org/competition/competition-news/2018/maggie

We wish him every success in the final round of the competition.