Dream.Build.Play is a competition where semi-pro and indy game developers are asked to create innovative video games for Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio. This year the four winners got their piece of $75,000 in cash as well as the opportunity for their game to show up on XBLA.
Microsoft says that there were over 350 games submitted from 110 countries for this year’s contest. Only four won:
- Nicolas Daures, France, won $40k for Lumi, a 2D action/puzzler
- Nenin Ananbanchachai, Thailand, won $20k for A.R.E.S, a 2.5D run-and-gunner
- Yoichi Hayashi, Japan, won $10k for Prismatic Solid, a rail shooter
- Norman and Steven Hunt, UK, won $5k for Beat Hazard, a twin-stick shooter
If you take the time to watch the gameplay footage (above and below the jump) from all the winners, I’m sure you’ll be impressed. The first place entrant, Lumi, as seen above, looks great. Killer art and music. I’m more into 3rd place pew-happy Prismatic Solid, though.
As a bonus this year, Old Spice teamed up to offer up a prize called the Old Spice Challenge. The community voted, and the winner is an action-adventure called Newton vs. The Horde. Graham Stewart and his dev team take home $60,000 for the win. To celebrate, they’re giving away copies of the game to the first 8,000 people that visit the Old Spice page on Xbox Live.
Congrats to all the winners. I’m looking forward to playing all of these!
A.R.E.S. by Extend Studio from Nenin Ananbanchachai on Vimeo.
