Posh Living in Manchester

We are in a ultra-posh hotel in Manchester. Microsoft really do look after you in these competitions. For some reason I've been upgraded to a posh suite, which has a patio, huge bed and all kinds of extras (and like a proper hotel also has a kettle and stuff for making tea). Excellent.

I arrived in Manchester just in time to meet up with the team and have a look at their presentation. Things had been coming along quite nicely (as is usually the case until I turn up....)

Anyhoo, after we had to move out from the hotel meeting room to make way for the Guitar Hero setup, of which more later, we repaired to my room for a planning session. We got set up, and were just about to get to the important stuff when all the lights in the room went out. Yours truly, the suave, globetrotting traveller had forgotten to put his room card in the switch at the door, which meant that all the power and lighting had timed out. So it was a series of muffled curses and stubbed toes as I made it the length of my suddenly enormous room to put the lights back on.

So, after that we met up for a Guitar Hero competition. People seem to confuse me owning a game (I've got lots) with me actually being any good at it. This is a common mistake, in that I don't actually spend too much time dwelling on my abilities in the games (just as well), but it did mean that I ended up playing my round of the competition on the "normal" mode, as opposed to my preferred easy setting. I made a right idiot of myself, but fortunately as we were being ranked for the competition I only had to play once..

Johno from our team turned out to be quite the guitar whizz, and finished third. He took away a really nice webcam. The winner, a chap from St. Andrews, was a well worthy champion, with amazing axe skills. He got an Xbox 360. Then, after a few more tunes, it was time for bed.

Anthony and Johno getting to grips with the guitar.

Andy and Dave from Microsoft giving it their all

My digital home from home. I just like the shadows.

Comments

[JDog]

I didn't realise that students at Hull University were allowed to enter gaming competitions on University time...Luckily for me I'm quite the gifted player of games...specifically XBLA games. Boom Boom Rocket anyone ?

Seems like everyone down in Manchester was having fun.

[Rob]

The Imagine Cup isn't a gaming competition. The Guitar Hero compo was just a bit of fun that they set up in the evening. The students had spent the day learning development technology to help them prepare their entries.

[JDog]

Ah, I see...The imagine Cup from what I have researched is a student level version of the larger XNA programming competition, "Dream, Build Play" if i'm correct.

Would projects done throughout the years at University be elligible for entry into external competitions or are they created for the sole purpose of coursework and to be added to the portfolio ?

[Anoleis]

JDog you colonial rube!

[Rob]

The Imagine Cup and Dream Create Play are different competitions. The Imagine Cup is only open to students and is themed each year. It contains a software development challenge and a number of others, including XNA game development (where we also have a team into the next round).

The Imagine Cup theme this year is the environment, next year it will be different. Any student who wants to form a team (based on coursework or not) can do so. We have had students create their own projects as entries to the competition in the past, we are quite OK with this as long as the project is also a properly academic one.

This year we got four teams into the next round of the UK heats, out of 12 over the entire country. Last year we also got four into the final and ended up winning the UK competition. And the year before that we did just the same. For some reason Hull seems to be quite good at this competition.

[Phoenix]

They had a guitar hero 2 competition down at MIX:UK over summer as well. Tis always a good laugh, especially when free alcohol is provided beforehand ;).