Off the map

Off the Map: Videogame & Interactive Fiction Design Competition

The Wondering Lands of Alice by Off Our Rockers for Off The Map 2015

Published date:: 14 August 2018

About the competition

The competition sets students the task of creating video games, text adventures and virtual interactive environments using digitised British Library ‘assets’ including maps, views, texts, book illustrations and recorded sounds as creative inspiration. Furthermore, competitions have been themed to coincide with British Library exhibitions.

Previous winners

For 2016 the competition tied in with the Shakespeare in Ten Acts exhibition.The first place winning entry used The Tempest sub theme and was created by Team Quattro from De Montfort University in Leicester. Tom Battey from the London College of Communication was awarded second place for a game based on the characters in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Details about these games can be found in this blog post.
In 2015 the competition celebrated 150 years of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and winning games were playable in the Alice in Wonderland exhibition. First place was awarded to The Wondering Lands of Alice by Team Off our Rockers, De Montfort University in Leicester, more information is in this blog post and press release.
The 2014 competition set a challenge using Crytek's CRYENGINE software and themes were linked to the Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination, details in this blog post and press release. First place winning team, Gothulus Rift, from the University of South Wales, created a Fonthill Abbey inspired game called Nix using Oculus Rift, which is available as a free download, but you will need your own first generation Oculus Rift headset to play it.
The 2013 competition did not tie in with an exhibition, but set a challenge to build a game or 3D environment using Crytek's CRYENGINE software, based on maps and views of three sites: Stonehenge, the Pyramids at Giza, and seventeenth century London, which was chosen by aptly named first place winning team Pudding Lane Productions from De Montfort University, Leicester, read more in this blog post and press release.