‘Astral Adventures’, a team of six recent graduates from the University of Westminster, have submitted their work on UK Game Funds for the final stages of the Tranzfuser Enterprise Pathway to turn their prototype gaming idea into a commercial business.
The Astral Adventures team consists of six recent Westminster graduates. Dariusz Piotrowski, Project Leader/Programmer; Jakub Sadowski, Programmer; Gazelle Sahabi, Programmer; and Daniel Eji, Programmer and 3D Artist who all studied on the Computer Games Development BSc Honours course; Antonio Shanti Berenguer from the Music: Production, Performance and Enterprise BA BMus course and Natalia Stoyanova from the Illustration and Visual Communication BA Honours course.
The team successfully applied to the competition through the Tranzfuser UK Games Fund for the Enterprise Pathway to start a studio in May 2021. Tranzfuser aims to boost the UK’s future games development talent with the main focus of helping new teams come together and develop new gaming inventions as a learning journey. Tranzfuser supports team members who aspire to build a commercially sustainable studio or simply pursue a career as an employee or freelancer and want to use their project as evidence of their talent.
Astral Adventures is one of 17 teams who have submitted their work on UK Games Funds for the final stages of the Enterprise Pathway with the vision of creating their own games studio. The team’s game submission ‘Jim’s Landing’ is a tower defence exploration game where the player plays as Jim, an explorer scientist transported to a faraway planet by the mothership to discover whether it is habitable. Jim has to defend his ship against hostile aliens at night time, and the player collects resources, builds up defences and protects the ship until the mothership returns.
Over the summer, the team worked with their appointed facilitator Alain Xalabarde, Product Manager at Zeptlab to continue to work on Jim’s Landing. In the final stages of the competition, the game MVP version is available to play and on September 25-26, the Astral Adventures team will stream live on Twitch to showcase their game in a live and interactive format. Astral Adventures will showcase their game live on Sunday 26 September at 2pm. Members of the public are also invited to vote for their favourite game in the ProtoPlay Audience Award, which is open until Monday 27 September.
Talking about the competition, Team Leader Gazelle Sahabi said: “Taking part in the Tranzfuser competition aided me in becoming a better leader; it is about listening, taking responsibility, and making fair decisions that benefit the game and team. I learned that truly connecting with your audience is as vital as following the full development life cycle. The whole team Worked incredibly hard and having others enjoy the world and stories we have created would be wonderful.”
Antonio Shanti Berenguer, Audio Designer, added: “This has been a great opportunity for me to gain first-hand experience while working within an independent game development setting. The knowledge I acquired during the Tranzfuser Enterprise Pathway Bootcamp has broadened my understanding of the video game industry while preparations for the final pitch challenged me to think beyond just creating a cool and unique game, but also to explore ways in which to thrive as a sustainable independent game development studio for years to come. I am personally honoured to have taken part in this year’s program and would encourage more Music Production Enterprise and Performance BA BMus students to get involved.”
Find out more about the Tranzfuser 2021 competition.
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