Student Storyboard/Treatment Competition
The Student Storyboard/Treatment Competition involves creating and submitting an original game design document and storyboard that defines and solves a particular problem in health and healthcare that would be of particular interest (in subject matter, or in how it plays) to other young students.
The document should be 3-5 pages in length and include 3-4 relevant visuals. Documents will then be judged by our panel with finalists being announced in early April and the first prize winner being announced in May of 2007. The winning design will receive a $5,000 prize payable to the designated recipient of the submitting team.
Critical to the all submission in this category are the following criteria:
* Work must be original and produced by a full-time student in a qualified two-year, or four-year institution, or high-school during either Fall 2006 or spring 2007.
* Work must define a problem the game is intended to solve. This includes not only stating the problem but providing some underlying logic to the problem, and demonstrate some strong knowledge of the challenges faced by the particular area the game is meant to contribute to. For example, we know that a huge problem with weight gain is that it happens casually over time for many people. How does this happen? What are the particulars of the problem, is there any basic support research or observation for this, etc.
* Work must then detail a game or game-based application that attempts to answer some aspect of the problem as defined in your design document. A critical judging factor is the ability for the document to properly define a problem, and then sync a creative game-based solution to the problem as defined. Poorly defined problems, or games which speak to the generality of the problem as defined or which seem dubious toward solving the problem will score lower.
* Submission must include at least three visual design aides. These need not be master works of art. They must however provide some strong capability for judges to understand how the game will work and how the user will interact with the software. Wireframe diagrams, mock ups that cut and paste elements together from other games, basic screen diagrams are all more then sufficient. The quality is in how well they communicate how the game will work and demonstrate strong design ideas, not the overall quality of the artwork itself. Documents may provide more then three diagrams - the more that add to the document and play a meaningful role, the better.
* Documents must include a technical and budget feasibility section. You must define some basic level of how the game will be constructed (what critical technologies will it use, what platform(s) will it run on, how much will it cost to develop? These need not be extreme technical dissertations. They will be evaluated for how well they demonstrate you have a realistic cost and technology assessment as part of your submission. Cost is NOT a large factor in the competition. Accuracy of costs is. A game which is $5 million to produced and is accurately described will be judged as well as a game that costs $250,000 and is accurately described.
* We encourage all submissions to include a section that details game-play influences and ideas from other games that have informed your design. A strong document will consider how it fits in with the many genres, and styles of play commercial games have achieved over the past 30 years.
* We encourage all treatments to include a single page mock up of an advertisement, flyer, or the box art that might be used for your idea were it to be built. This is a great way to demonstrate how the game would work - see our examples here:
* Documents should be no more then 10-12 pages including basic diagrams.