Search For A Star | Games Programming Finalists 2024
The assessments have been completed and we have our finalists selection for this year’s Search For A Star and Rising Star challenges in Games Programming!
Our programming category is the original challenge that we started out with back in 2010, and is designed to help students create a high level portfolio project based on a studio brief and workflow, and then get industry feedback from our assessment team of studio devs from across the industry. The highest achievers are invited to meet and interview with a panel of professionals from across the games industry.
For their projects, students were provided with a barebones C++ and DX11 prototype project based around a simple rotational puzzle mechanic. They were then tasked to develop it into a complete and published game, building upon the existing codebase to implement new features and gameplay mechanics.
We’ll be interviewing all the finalists and revealing the winners of this year’s challenges at our Search For A Star finals day, taking place on April 4th in Sheffield.
We’ve had a range of fantastic submissions this year, so let’s take a look at the projects that have taken these high achieving students into this year’s finals!
Search for a Star 2024
Students in their final year of a degree or in postgraduate study
Alexander Smith
Glasgow Caledonian University
Gravity Sling
Alexander’s slingshot puzzler uses the gravity wells of orbiting planets to help navigate a ship across the solar system to its destination.
Picking up one of the highest scores in the C++ code review for a good well-rounded project, plus great scores in the gameplay assessment for a creative adaption of the base prototype, our assessors propelled Alexander into the finals.
Henry Ha
The Developer Academy
Escape Ghoul Prison
Henry’s lockpicking minigame pits you against an eagle-eyed prison guard, as you try to escape your cell between their patrols and against a countdown timer.
Our assessors scored Henry highly across both the code review and gameplay, particularly impressed by the implementation of the behaviour tree, which was a core focus for the project.
Maggie Amaro
Instituto Superior Tecnico – ULisboa
Game of the Dizzy Goose
Maggie adapted a card-based board game for her project, giving a solid ruleset to build into a mechanics and AI focused project.
Our assessors were impressed by the creativity and originality of the project, with great scores all-round, particularly for clear, good quality code and data management.
Oluwapelumi Ayeni
Solent University
Water Works
Taking a simple mechanic and polishing it to the highest possible level in the time available, Oluwapelumi’s waterflow puzzle game is a great benchmark for the challenge, showcasing a wide range of skills and knoweldge.
Achieving the highest scores across both the gameplay and code review, our assessors were very impressed by the technical proficiency of the project, complete with the addition of well-implemented features in clean and well-structured code.
Tanapat Somrid
Abertay University
Pirate Bay
Working over just a week, Tanapat created a well-scoped tower defence game with swarming enemies and a good feature set.
Our assessors were impressed at how much was achieved in such a short space of time, with a smart way of integrating the original project, great code management, and well-implemented features.
Rising Star 2024
Undergraduate students not yet in their final year, or at college/school level
Ash Henry
Liverpool John Moores University
Scuffed Space Shooters
Ash created a solid core gameplay loop based around a space invaders variant, with a really creative approach to incorporating the base project as a menu selection wheel.
Assessors praised the base project implementation, as well as the clear scope of the project, which led to a very achievable feature set development.
Dmitrii Kolchin
University for the Creative Arts
Hotline Dungeon
Returning to the Rising Star finals for the second year in a row, Dmitrii took the base project and built it into a twin-stick shooter with a core loop stemming from Hotline Miami.
Feature-rich and with a strong gameplay implementation, our assessors were very impressed with the project overall, especially in the code review with strong technical knowledge shown in development.
Finlay Laidlaw
Abertay University
AURIONNAUT
Mixing both 2D and 3D, Finlay built a solid and polished prototype inspired by Elite‘s mix of trading and space combat.
Showing a great mix of skills and knowledge across a broad range, our assessors scored the project well across all criteria, with particular note to the good scoping and AI development.
Jade Friend
Ravensbourne University
Super Star-ogon
Jade took the base project and developed a minimalist action game inspired by Super Hexagon, using the project as a learning process for working outside of an engine.
Our assessors scored Jade well for the technical knowledge shown within the project, particularly for showing a good level of technical thinking and decision processes, in addition to being well-scoped and implemented.
Stuart Heath
Coventry University
Pickle Engine
Stuart took the risky decision to abandon the project brief and use the base prototype to create a standalone game engine. This would make it almost impossible to reach the finals, as you’d need to excel in the technical criteria with a range of high quality code, core tech knowledge, great data management, good coding practice, and a very high overall level of C++ proficiency to make up for the many lost points across gameplay and mechanical implementation.
Stuart excelled in the technical criteria 😎
