UOIT Games Con 2013- Is the winner a truely the winner

For this blog, I'm assuming that you guys have been to UOIT's Games Con 2013. Game con was a good event, however it is easily overshadowed by provincial wide game events, such as Level Up. Many interesting games were shown, however majority of them were not finished.

Despite the many awesome games throughout the convention, there could only be one game of the show, Red Dawn. It won 3 awards throughout the show, best 3rd year game, best game-play, and best game of the show. This is a 3rd year competitive multi player game which involved players controlling a pirate ship to destroy other ships. This could be done in a variety of different manners, from explosives cannonballs, to the close range of scorching flames, or even the satisfaction of a well placed mine.

Looks

If anything the game had achieved the look it was aiming for, looking like Zelda: Windwaker
There was a great deal of toon shading in the game, from the ships, to the waves,and even the pretty flames of your burning ship. Little touches such as wind currents, and the cartoony wave effects added to the feel. Also the waves were probably done with some form of GPU based calculations, since they seemed to be interacting with each ship.

WINNER?

In my opinion yes. It deserved all the awards it got, and if anything the team worked hard for them. Sure the concept is simpler than most of the other game, however they still created what they set out to create. A lot , if not most of the games at Games Con failed to do this, which was is a major problem plaguing many game development programs. The fact is the game came through its development, successfully was an achievement on its own.

If anything the question is do we want a nice looking tech demo, or a full fledged playable game? Your answer will decide if you agree with Red Dawn being the winner.