Year 12 Lumen Christi students Jade Short and Maxwell Arch were on Thursday announced as winners in the 2021 Australian STEM Video Game Challenge.
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The challenge is an annual national game development competition open to all school students, with categories for differing age brackets and development specifications.
The STEM video game challenge is hosted by the Australian Council for Educational Research, which described the challenge as "facilitating engagement with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, students learn vital skills for the future through designing, building and testing an original video game".
This year the competition received 2800 entries and among those was "Murus", the winning submission from Bega Valley studio Soulcube, comprising Lumen Christi Catholic College students Jade Short and Maxwell Arch.
Murus is an arcade-like platformer - without platforms! - equipped with a challenging campaign, a custom level editor, unique pixel art style and retro chiptune soundtrack.
Murus is also featuring at this years virtual PAX Australia - the nation's biggest gaming convention
While 2021 is the final year Soulcube is eligible for the Australian STEM Video Game Challenge, the current Year 12 students said they would continue to be present in spirit, acting as mentors for the next generation of creative game developers in the region.
Jade and Maxwell are big advocates for the constructive role that game development can play in the lives of youth, and are keen to continue supporting the STEM games initiative in the future.
A platformer without platforms!?
In contrast to traditional platformers, Murus (the Latin word for 'wall') sees players traverse a plethora of unique levels by scaling walls, with a "floor is lava" death system.
Players must collect all the magical orbs as fast as they can in order to progress through the variety of stages.
The developing game also comes with level editing ability and various challenges for players and level creators.
Persevering through challenges
Students entering the 2021 Australian STEM Video Game Challenge have been commended for persevering throughout an often challenging school year.
Nearly 2800 students in Years 5-12 from schools around Australia entered the competition to design and build an original video game, which this year had to address the theme 'scale'.
Winners in six categories defined by age group and game design platform will be showcased at gaming convention PAX Aus Online this weekend (October 8-10).
Established in 2014, the Australian STEM Video Game Challenge aims to engage students with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
Challenge manager and ACER Foundation Director Lisa Norris said this year's entries showed incredible resilience and resourcefulness to complete their games in such a disrupted school year.
"Several teams mentioned in their submissions the challenges they had to overcome to collaboratively design and build a video game during a pandemic," Ms Norris said.
"The fact that three of the six winning teams are from Melbourne, where there have been extensive periods of remote learning, demonstrates the problem-solving, creativity and collaboration skills that students can develop through game design."
The Australian STEM Video Game Challenge is coordinated by the charitable arm of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), the ACER Foundation. Sponsors and supporters of the 2021 Challenge include BigAnt Studios, Creative Vic, IGEA, Roccat, Scienceworks and PAX Aus, as well as universities, corporate partners and game developers.
Visit www.stemgames.org.au for more.