Swinburne students win international Student Game Award in LA

A game created by Swinburne students has won the Student Game Award at an internationally renowned gaming awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

In accepting the prestigious award, Swinburne student and design lead on the project, Stephen Scoglio, thanked Swinburne and called it “the best place in Australia to learn how to make games”.

In the winning game, called Level Squared (LVL²), players control a square with a beating heart in a minimalist world. The game features a projection mechanic which allows players to manipulate the size and position of objects relative to their own. Players can select objects to project, clone and move within the level.

The award was judged based on the excellence and ambition of the game, without regard to the team size or the subject matter.

The Game Awards are considered one of the most prestigious events in the international gaming calendar and features high profile people, announcements and trailer releases.

The Student Game Award was awarded for the first time this year. The judging panel consisted of renowned developers Hideo Kojima, Todd Howard, Illka Paananen, Kim Swift and Vince Zampella.

The award was announced by YouTube personality Justine Ezarik and actor Lance Reddick.

Design lead Stephen Scoglio flew to Los Angeles for the awards ceremony.

“Thank you very much for actually creating this category, there’s a lot of great student games that have been made,” Mr Scoglio said in his acceptance speech.

“I want to thank the rest of the team… as well as Swinburne University, [the] best place in Australia to learn how to make games. And also our teacher and mentor, Mr Andy Trevillian.”

Producer Kip Brennan was also thankful for the game’s win.

“It's a huge honour to win the award for best student game. It's a great reward for the team for all the hard work that we put in over the year and also to all the people who have mentored us through our time at Swinburne,” says Mr Brennan.

“Thank you to the judges and to the other teams that were nominated. We know they will all go on to make a huge contribution to the games industry in the future.”

Independent game developers at The Arcade also played an important role in the development of LVL².

“For LVL² to be nominated for Best Student Game was amazing and unexpected. To actually win this award is surreal,” says programming lead Dane Perry Svendsen.

“We're extremely grateful to the developers at The Arcade for offering up their time to playtest and critique LVL², and of course we couldn't have gotten this far without Andy Trevillian’s ongoing support.”

The team of games and interactivity and computer science students, named Glitch Crab Studios, consisted of:

• Kip Brennan (production lead)
• Stephen Scoglio (design lead)
• Dane Perry-Svendsen (programming lead and source control)
• Tegan Nicholson (marketing, community management and sound design)
• Genevieve Rathgeber (art and animation)
• Mark Tan (art)
• Matthew Harvey (programming and music)
• Benedict Zeng (programming)

LVL² is free to download and play on itch.io.

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