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Commando Kiwi claims victory in Make Something Unreal Live finals

Studio wins Unreal Engine 3 licence

Commando Kiwi claims victory in Make Something Unreal Live finals
Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone crowned start up developer group Commando Kiwi as the winner of 2012's Make Something Unreal Live event.

Set up by Epic Games and Train2Game, the competition saw four teams developing iOS games based on books from the pair's Fighting Fantasy series.

The near-finished games were worked on over four days prior to the grand finale at the Gadget Show Live held in Birmingham, UK.

For the win

The competition began at Epic Game Jam in November 2011, which saw more 100 developers working to a 48-hour deadline to create a game using Epic's Unreal Development Kit (UDK).

Spanning five months, the games' development came to a head over the past weekend as the four finalists presented their projects to judges twice a day to implement feedback from industry veterans such as Peter Molyneux and Cliff Bleszinkski.

Winning with its game The Warlock of Firetop Mountain: Lost Chapters, Commando Kiwi gains a full source Unreal Engine 3 license for iOS for its next title, and a holiday to Aqua City water park in Slovakia.

"I'm just dead proud of my team. They've worked really hard and this competition has changed our lives forever," said team captain Jonny Robinson.

Everyone a winner

"It's remarkable what these teams were able to produce working remotely for such a short period of time using UDK," said Fighting Fantasy co-creator Ian Livingstone.

"Although only one of the teams has won this amazing prize, the experience they have gained is invaluable and I fully expect to see many of them working in the video games industry."

All four projects will be completed and released on the App Store following a publishing deal with AppyNation with a portion of proceeds being donated to The Prince's Trust.


Steve Jackson at competition finale

Fresh out of the packaging, Tom joins Pocket Gamer with a chip on his shoulder and a degree in Journalism. Naively, Tom believes there's a star-studded career in video games and has penned words across the internet in between praying to the almighty Nintendo gods.