Make Something Unreal Competition Results

By: Derek Yu

On: February 19th, 2010

Make Something Unreal Competition Winners

The “Make Something Unreal” mod competition is over after 2 years! The winner of the competition was The Haunted, a multiplayer survival horror game. The creators of this mod will receive $50,000 and a commercial license from Epic Games for Unreal Engine 3.

According to Alexander Bruce, the creator of Hazard – Journey of Life, all 5 grand prize winners are going commercial. I’ve provided videos of each game and links after the jump.

1. The Haunted (Michael Hegemann)

2. The Ball (Toltec Studios)

3. Angels Fall First (AFF Team)

4. Prometheus (Rachel Cordone)

5. Hazard – The Journey of Life (Alexander Bruce)

  • TeamQuiggan

    Yeah! Go Alexander Bruce!

  • Frog

    don’t forget the ball! I think that’s the one Snaky was working on.

  • Frank

    The Ball is a Glover remake.
    Should be good.

  • Ailike

    Some comments on the trailers…

    The Haunted:
    The trailer is horrible. The recurring sound effect used at every snapshot makes me cringe. The video snapshots are too short. I can’t tell a thing from it!

    The Ball:
    Fantastic trailer. Beautiful and intriguing world. The main mechanics are apparent and it looks pretty straightforward. It looks good.

    Angels Fall First:
    The trailer is pretty cool and makes me very curious. Another beautiful world. But it seems like there are many different environments and interface to learn (thanks to the vehicles) and that makes me wonder if everything will feel polished.

    Prometheus:
    The trailer is pretty much an unedited segment of the game. It makes it easy to tell how one plays the game. It’s still better than the trailer of The Haunted. As for the gimmick of the game, I’m personally not sure I’m up to redoing the same actions to move forward. It’s pretty much Lock? Push button. Go back in time. Find next lock. Ad nauseam.

    Hazard: The journey of life:
    Yeah, I didn’t listen to what was being said. Useless, wordy and thus boring stuff. But the puzzles and aesthetic certainly look worthwhile to check out! A nice trailer.

  • Derek

    I liked reading your comments on the trailers.

  • Stargoat

    I agree, the trailer to The Haunted was pretty bad. It really doesn’t give a sense of what’s happening in the game.

    Angels Fall First, thought… that’s certainly piqued my interest.

  • Ivan

    Hazard looks amazing. I’m glad it’s one of the winners. Prometheus looks interesting as well (It seems like PB Winterbottom has spawned a whole new game genre).

  • Alexander Bruce

    “Hazard: The journey of life: Yeah, I didn’t listen to what was being said. Useless, wordy and thus boring stuff. But the puzzles and aesthetic certainly look worthwhile to check out! A nice trailer.”

    Ailike, I’d encourage you to not try the game at all then, despite liking the ideas of the puzzles and aesthetic. I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t like it, if this was your reaction after seeing the video. It’s a difficult puzzle game, with reason, though I’m sure that you would find it pointless if you didn’t care for the philosophy.

    That’s not to say the game is bad at all. Almost everyone who has played it has loved it, and it’s won several awards, but there have been a few cases where people didn’t “get it” or understand why the game had philosophy in it, and it felt like a waste of time to them. They’re the minority.

    Saying it for your sake. :)

  • chrknudsen

    The Haunted trailer seems to be a “victory” trailer, so maybe it’s more of a “yes, we won!” than a “this is what the game is about” thing?

  • chrknudsen

    Just checked out the moddb site for The Haunted and there’s a proper trailer that shows off the game a lot more. Maybe I’d be better to use this trailer in the article?

  • Gutter

    How come no one seems to have played those games? Doesn’t anyone has UT3? I don’t just mean here… Most site mentioning them get third hand opinions about them.

  • tom crab

    The angel mod looks rad, too bad my computer can’t run UE3

  • Alexander Bruce

    UT3 didn’t sell awesome, and some of the games aren’t what typical UT3 players would want to play. There’s also more mods out there for UT3 players than there are UT3 servers themselves!

    Basically, you’ve got a small audience being split into even smaller audiences of mod players. Lots of people have played them, just not those writing news etc.

  • Alex

    Hazard seems very “artsy”. Not that it bothers me. In fact the way the game plays with perspective seems very interesting (in a good way).

  • Extended

    I’m all for indie games but I don’t think studios who intend to only provide a sample of their work as a mod and then move to retail should be eligible for such contests, as they clearly have certain goals, to be professionals in the industry, or indies, and only use such contests as marketing, and in turn amateurs genuinly working on mods to do exactly that lose the opportunity to gather an audience as they can’t compete with professionals in their own game. It’s different for the winner who may have only decided to go retail upon winning the engine licence but the whole top 5 to take this road? Motives are clear…

    Why not at least have separate contests, one for mods and one for indie games using Unreal Engine 3 etc? Though I’d guess game devs would still cheat in that in the same way, presenting their idea as a mod to get people sampling it for free and wanting more, and competing against lesser competition who may not be professional, then changing to commercial product after the contest’s end again.

    I dunno if I’ll get attacked for this, but I guess people who are into indie games but not mods could understand my point of view if I compare it to someone like say, EA, creating an “indie games” label and small studios that put out cheap wannabe artsie games and enters them in the IGF and such indie games contests for exposure…

  • Yakatori

    Alex, among all those, your work intrigued me the most. If video gaming was as mature as film you would have won. I guess you knew that coming in especially on the Unreal Engine space, so taking a risk like that was even ballsier. Double Kudos to you.

  • peachboy

    terrific post

  • Ailike

    @Alexander Bruce

    Why thanks for thinking about sparing me the trouble. :)

    So I’ll go ahead and tell you what the real issue was. (Since really, does it make sense when I say that I haven’t listened to what was being said yet still comment on it being boring?)

    Focus.

    Humans don’t like to multitask. They focus on something and everything else becomes background information. (That’s not to say that background information isn’t important! But some information aren’t meant to be put in the background!) The trailer contained tons of interesting visual information and some male voice droning on and on. The other trailers get it right, not only do they not force us to switch between visual and audio information, but when they want to say something with words they make sure it’s the only thing in our focus.

    So what you need to do is get a woman with a sweet voice to whisper the philosophy bits. Then, I would listen, even if the philosophy was irredeemably puerile. :)

    However, I would like to note that I have mixed feelings concerning the reasons you’ve given for which I couldn’t appreciate your mod.

    Entertainment is a waste of time by our society’s standards. When I play I game, I’ll enjoy myself (and not consider it a waste of time) if I find the world interesting to progress into and to beat. The puzzles and aesthetics are what makes me enjoy myself and that’s precisely why I pay attention to those elements.

    Seriously, when I’ve saved the princess in Mario, I don’t consider that I’ve wasted my time because saving the princess hasn’t gotten me laid or something. :O

    You’re saying that if I don’t get the philosophy I absolutely won’t be able to enjoy your game even if I think the puzzles are good. I can’t even wrap my head around that comment, it makes so little sense. You’re claiming that people who disregarded the philosophy and were only looking at the puzzles didn’t enjoy themselves, but that would mean the puzzles sucked, and yet you say that the puzzles are good.

    And one more thing… (Steve style!)

    What makes you think I’m so stingy with my time that I would not want to try out something that seems interesting? I’m not going to force myself to play if through if I’m not having fun. And I can’t ever consider checking if I like something a waste of time. By the end of the check, I’ve obviously learned something new: whether what I was trying sucked or not.

  • Alexander Bruce

    @Extended

    Throughout the entire Make Something Unreal competition, there were many people who were creating things as “indies” or using it as a learning process. That’s A) why there’s an Educational Category, and B) why my game is there. The fact that all 5 mods are going commercial is because the UDK was released, and it’s now possible to do so quite easily, having gained some exposure. I can’t comprehend how you could think that people would win Make Something Unreal, and then not want to go commercial, given that there’s now very good reason for doing so. Every person who was one of the winners here, and most of the people who missed out as well, have all been making free mods for a very long time.

    @Yakatori

    Thanks, though I never intended to win overall. I never expected to win anything in Make Something Unreal at all. The fact that I won 4 times was a surprise to me, but it’s great nonetheless.

    @ Ailike

    To each his own. The reason the philosophy is there in the trailer is because to quite a number of people, that’s what makes the game even more interesting than the visuals or the puzzles, and because it’s significant to the game. When I first made that trailer, I had a number of people go “I think you should just make the trailer without any words at all. Maybe put music in there”, as in… just make it a generic game trailer, but I’m clearly not trying to advertise the game as a standard game. I’m not scared that philosophy may scare people away. Despite whether it seems to be the case, what is said in the philosophy links up to what is happening with the video, though that makes more sense to me than someone just watching the video, no doubt.

    I will be doing trailers of various styles, and may do the one that people typically expect out of game trailers, because it is still as much a game as any other game out there. This trailer turned out how it did because it was the trailer that I did for Sense of Wonder Night, so I needed something that would most guarantee me a placement there, and it certainly worked out well for me.

    As for the female voice, the trailer was put together on limited time, so I just had to go with what I had on hand. After SOWN etc, I then had constant deadlines and other things in life to get out of the way. I personally didn’t believe that the sex of the voice has anything to do with it at all, and will continue recording things with my voice, though I have a far better microphone for such things now. Like anything in the game, I’m doing it for a reason.

    Regarding the comment about you finding the game dull, I’m not saying that because the puzzles suck. I’m saying that because if you don’t appreciate the philosophy in the game, several “puzzles” are going to seem completely pointless to you, or seem as though there is more frustration than there should be. The 4 people I have found thus far who didn’t care for the philosophical aspects would make statements like “Why would I want to explore?” or “What is the incentive to continue playing this game?”. It’s the nature of the game. The same reasons they ask those questions are the same reasons most people love the game. However, even a couple of people who loved the game have also made statements like “If the philosophy wasn’t in the game, it would feel empty, but because it’s there, I really enjoy the feeling of discovery that you get from the game.”

    I know this, and that’s why it’s there. Philosophy helped me develop the game, and developing the game helped me refine the philosophy in it. My statements are not just me trying to turn people away from the game, obviously. It’s me saying that there are clearly some people who don’t enjoy the thing at all, and will play it and go “why did this win awards again?”, though that’s the nature of anything really, so it’s fair enough.

    As for your last comment, you’re more than welcome to try the game and see if you enjoy it. It’s still possible, sure. I played Braid and didn’t read the story at all the first time through, yet I still found it enjoyable. On my first run through of Portal, I also had the sound off, because I was playing in the middle of the night with people sleeping. In both cases, I was just doing puzzles for puzzles sake, because I love puzzles.

    I guess the point of my comments is just to justify design decisions etc. of the game, which I’ve been doing since very early on in development.

  • ROM KITTY

    Wow… These all look good! If this keeps up it might really be worth it to get Unreal 3 for PC. It wasn’t fun for me on PS3… :( Sold it

  • dang

    Prometheus use an ideia that i saw already in 1000 flash games, that are probablt more fun than this game, i will play the other 4

  • Dodger

    @Ailike,

    I totally agree with you on The Haunted. That trailer is a bit of a mess. I can’t knock it as a game (haven’t played it) but aside from the shabby trailer it looks ugly as hell but at the same time there’s something very Gears of War about the environments in it as well (Gee I wonder why ;-P). If the competition was based on the trailer alone though, The Haunted probably wouldn’t have even placed, but that’s just my opinion.

  • Ailike

    Oh hey Bruce, I was kidding about the female voice. It was a joke on a way you could have brought attention to the speech.

    It’s not wrong to engineer your speech within the trailer. I’m just saying that if you find it important you should find a way to put it in focus. I commented on it because it didn’t seem right for me that speech would become background noise.

  • raelz

    And where exactly is Project Stealth?

  • Brian Handy

    Definitely interested in Hazard. Angels Fall First looks like a bunch of fun too. Prometheus I’m glad to see, but I hope they go a bit further with it. Just looks like a 3d version of Cursor*10 right now.

  • Kishi

    Hazard is amazing.

    Hours of addictive and evolving puzzles — that do, indeed, ‘flow with life’. :)

    It beats Portal’s ass. Definitively one of the best puzzle games I’ve played — and it gets pretty hard.
    I can’t imagine how much effort Alexander put on the maps and puzzle progression. It’s just genius!

    It’s obvious I felt in love with the game — even with some lack of polish.

    The best and worst part of the game are the weapons. They provide some freaking awesome puzzles and at the same time they can make you go crazy when they won’t hit the intended spot. I know it’s hard to implement a system to control a 3d model/path with a 2d input, but there are times it’s just frustating.

    This is a ‘must play’.
    Can’t wait to get the final version.

  • Alexander Bruce

    @Ailike

    Fair enough. The voice being background noise is something I can accept based on things like recording quality etc. It’s not the best quality recording, and so it does become a bit of a drone / difficult to listen to, so I can understand your point. Thanks for your feedback.

    @raelz

    There were plenty of mods that didn’t make it to the grand finals, despite being really good. I don’t think Project Stealth made finalist in Phase 4, and therefore wasn’t eligible for the grand finals.

    @Kishi

    I’m glad you really like it. I am indeed working on making the gun less finicky. Obviously being the person who made the game, I’ve learned to live with any implementation details that exist right now whilst I continued working on the rest of the game, but I can guarantee that in the final version of the game, drawing freehand in 3D will feel second nature. It certainly helps when the framerate is locked off at 60fps, which it wasn’t in either the demo or the standalone version until recently. For the demo it will be, as I’ve already fixed it.

    The gun is doing more complex calculations as tiles fly around than it may seem, to stop players being able to shoot tiles in stupid places, keep things aligned to the grid, etc. But, I will definitely be fixing all of that stuff as time goes on. It’s something I’ve received feedback about several times.

    A hell of a lot more polish, bug fixing and optimization is definitely coming in the final version, or has already been implemented for the coming demo.

  • Pnx

    I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Hazard so far, I’ve got sentiments similar to Kishi’s there, but I have run into an issue where I can’t seem to get “snaking” to work, I tried reconfiguring the middle mouse button’s command to a keyboard key, but it didn’t work. It has been a thoroughly enjoyable game though.

  • Alexander Bruce

    Pnx, where did you download the mod from? Different places link different versions of the mod.

    If you are still shooting green tiles, and are trying to snake, then you have brute forced a puzzle which was not meant to be brute forced, and have skipped another level of gun.

    I know for a fact that the version of the game on my website doesn’t allow this to happen. I can only assume that you have downloaded my Phase 4 entry, not my Grand Finals / final mod version submission. Please send an email to [email protected] and I can let you know where to get the gun you were supposed to get first, so that you can then continue playing the game normally.

    All of the issues that were present in the version I submitted to Make Soemthing Unreal have already been fixed for the standalone release, so rest assured, they are not an indication of the final level of polish and testing the game will see. It’s just the nature of playing a work in progress version of the game.

  • HaRdCoReGaMeR

    Some truly wonderful settings, some truly annoying game mechanics.

    I love the look of “The Ball”, but I’d really hate to play the whole game pushing the ball around.

    And I absolutely hate time-repetition games. In fact, I hate repetition, so the thought of repeating myself through time to accomplish a task is just mind-numbing (for me).

    What I’d like is a game that truly tests your intelligence, which allows you to use your knowledge of physics, chemistry, engineering, whatever.. but i guess that’s probably just crazy talk.

    Instead, we get games like this, in which the mechanic has to be something simple and physical (a ball) so that it’s playable by everybody.

  • Pnx

    Where did I get it? Quite simple, the link on this page at the top: http://www.demruth.com/hazard.htm

    And yeah, I brute forced a puzzle I wasn’t meant to, I think I’ll go look for the stage I’m missing on my own for a while though.

  • Anthony

    Does anyone know if you can play the UT3 mods on the PS3 version of the game? I’ve been having problems with my desktop lately but I really want to try these.

  • Pnx

    I did get the mod from your site, at least if the link here is going to the right place.

    I figured out where to get the upgrade I was missing by the way. I already knew about the particular puzzle and how to solve it I had just been too lazy to do it up till this point (it’s a little annoying).

  • Skofo

    Hazard, The Ball and Prometheus look pretty neat; I want to try them.

    One thing that disappoints me about Hazard is that it uses such a meaty engine for something that looks so technically simple. From what the trailer shows, I think that even a cheap homebrew engine would be able to power it and it’d look exactly the same. If they did that, people with shitty computers and/or without UT3 would be able to play. But I’ll probably get UT3 and try it out anyway.

  • Pnx

    Yeah, it does have a really chunky feel to it, and it runs more than a little bit glitchly for me.

    Anyway, I completed the game with a grand total of 5 hours 38 minutes and 15 seconds in playtime… I’m usually not prone to sensationalism, but I have to thank you Alexander. You made a game that hit my mental palette in just the right way.

    This genuinely feels like the best game I’ve ever played. I can’t say the words of wisdom themselves were unfamiliar, but they were fun to find, and matched the puzzles they related to, and in the end I took away my own wisdom from the game. The first and foremost of this is that whoever determines the winners of this competition has bad taste… At least in my opinion.

  • Alexander Bruce

    Skofo, Hazard uses the Unreal Engine because I have the most experience using Unreal. A cheap homebrew Engine may have been more accustomed to how the game ended up at the end, but it certainly wouldn’t have helped with the development of the game at all. The game would have never been made if it weren’t for ease of construction. Don’t underestimate the power of tools. If anything, it’s good that it uses the Unreal Engine, because it was eligible for this competition, and now you know about it!

    Also, you won’t need UT3 to play it, by the way. As the article states, it’s being released commercially later, as are all the other winners.