Game Grind 2012 @ ICAT, Chennai

ICAT, Chennai presented a grand Gaming Event "Game Grind 2012".It is the first game fest which opened doors for the public, to view and analyse the skills of students who have chosen Gaming for a career. This is an initiative taken by the students to bring their game designs and prototypes to enlighten and educate current generation, by sharing insights on the development of games.

This event also posed challenge to the gaming clans and was a proving ground for all age groups from all over Tamil Nadu. The game enthusiasts got an opportunity to meet professionals from leading game companies as well.

Game grind 2012 was a game event which was organized by the Game Department of ICAT, Chennai, on 18th, 19th and 20th February 2012 for school students. More than 150 student and 40 Professional gamers participated in this event.

The event had many facets. To start with GAME BREEDS which is actually a physical game carnival that was designed and hosted by the first year under graduate students. Setting up their physical game proved to be a great challenge, because games like racing cars, card games and much more already exists and students have to be creative in their process, they have to think different and be creative to come up with interesting games which have to hook the general crowd to it because of its re-playability factors.

Game Gallery was showcasing various games done by our 1st & 2nd Year Undergraduates students, pitching of gaming concepts by gamers of 3rd year to professionals and Workshop on Game Development by 2nd year Undergraduates.

Many challenging events were organized which included Game breeds for Game design competition for 1st year UG GDS, Game manifest - level design competition for 2nd UG GDS and Gaming tournaments - COD, DOTA, CS, track mania, for school students.

Seminar was conducted by Jithesh Poanchal (Game professional) which was focused on How to love game design and he also spoke about the current industry.

The highlight of the event was distributing the award for the winner who participated in the events. There was a cash prize of Rs. 1000, won by Praveen, Sherlyn and Faez for the best game design and best stall. Also Rs 500 was awarded to Raja for best level design.

DOTA tournament and Counter Strike awarded prize of Rs.5000 for Winners and Rs. 2500 for Runners up. The former was won by team MF (MIND FREAKS) and later Counter Strike was won by ZERO RESPECT. Trackmania had also distributed its prize of Rs.1000 and Rs.500 respectively which was won by Navin, and Call of Duty was won by MindFreaks. All the teams and winner were professional gaming teams from Chennai

Students learnt how to make their own games; they further developed that game, which gave them a better understanding about the role of programming used in games. It was a wonderful event full of zest, students and visitors enjoyed different variety of food and game stalls such as, adventure, strategy at their disposal.