Bear to Be Digital

Adult Swim UK’s Inaugural Gaming Award Goes To… the one with a steampunk shark and Bears With Jetpacks…

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that Adult Swim UK would be in Edinburgh during the biggest comedy festival of the year for, y’know, the shows n’ that. Nope. Too obvious. We were there for the gaming.

OK, we might have also enjoyed the midnight comedy stylings of Cardinal Burns, but the real reason we were there was to represent at Dare ProtoPlay – Scotland’s biggest (and free, comrades) video gaming event, held last weekend at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. During the three-day-event, Adult Swim had our own ‘area’, replete with Meatwad beanbag chairs, Adult Swim games to play and shows to watch, plus Amateur Surgeon cookies, bedecked with internal body parts.

But it wasn’t all getting-cool-stuff-from-booths. A lot of people go to this event for the world’s leading computer games design competition, the Dare to Be Digital awards. Three teams, chosen by a panel of gaming industry experts - Angry Mango, Team Tickle and That Game Studio - took the prize this year, which included nomination for the BAFTA Ones to Watch award.

For us, the weekend culminated in a moment of glory/acute embarrassment for our Creative Manager, Elliot Haag, when he was called upon to judge and present The Adult Swim Award for “creativity and unique game-play”. The game we chose was Grrr! – a multi-level 3D game with a gang of pleasingly random interacting characters that includes a Cannon-Crab, a Robot-Shark and an Emo-Unicorn. The company behind the game, Bears With Jetpacks, are now the proud owners of a set of Adult Swim medal trophies. We’re thinking they might want to think about tricking out their wardrobe a bit to make the most of that fine piece of jewelry…