We’ve been a little quiet since we launched back in April 2020. As you can imagine, the world pandemic brought uncertainty across the world, so we held off pushing hard to promote Chomp. Our priority was to focus on our core business, ensuring stability through unprecedented times. Luckily business remained good through this period and we worked on several great projects.
Now we appear to be on the other side, and our business is back on track, we decided that now would be a great time to start promoting Chomp and getting momentum back into Chomp’s roadmap. Earlier this year whilst planning opportunities to start getting Chomp back into the public, I was made aware of The Serious Games Showcase and Challenge Europe 2023 (http://sgschallenge.com/). So we entered thinking it would give us a bit of exposure and start the ball rolling again getting Chomp out there. Quite out of the blue we received notification that we’d become finalists for the showcase and that we would have the opportunity to exhibit Chomp at the event itself!
A showcase? Finalists?! GREAT, what a perfect way to not only demonstrate what we believe to be the perfect example of a serious game, Chomp, but also get out back into the real world talking about what we love, serious games.
The Serious Games Showcase and Challenge Europe 2023 was held at the DSET event 6th – 8th of June 2023. DSET is much more than an event. It is a community that works throughout the year to enable excellent networking, identify opportunities, exchange of ideas and best practice. DSET also provides a peer-to-peer engaging environment that produces results to current challenges for all participants, Military, Government, Academia & Industry.
Keep up to date about DSET by visiting their website, https://dset.co.uk/ and to find out more about Ruddy Nice who organise DSET, visit them here: https://ruddynice.com/
It was a privilege to be present at the event, and it was great to speak to so many people about serious games and demonstrate Chomp. It was lovely to see Chomp received so well and everyone instantly ‘got it’. The idea is to have fun first, then realise you’ve learnt real learning content, vocational skills for work. All whilst having fun, crazy huh? The more you play, the more you learn.
Of course it was great to see and speak to the other serious game finalists, who were from the UK, US and Germany. They ranged from using Microsoft’s Hololens to a custom built retro experience transmitting messages, promoting amateur radio. Surrounded by so many cool projects!!
And then this is where things got interesting...
On the 2nd day, we were called up to the main conference room and all the serious game developers were asked to come to the front. It was announced that Chomp had won the Ernie Romans Memorial Award for the most fun serious game at the showcase. I was hit with a wall of silly string and presented with not only an award, but an Hawaiian shirt to honour the larger than life spirit of Ernie Romans. The previous day I had actually chatted to Ernie’s widow and sons, who had been flown in from Canada especially to present this award. It was a joy and privilege to not only get to speak to the family but to be presented with such a prestigious award. Thank you!
ERNIE ROMANS MEMORIAL TROPHY
"Ernie Romans was a brilliant practitioner of Military Simulation and Training and a large part of our M&S community over the years. He was a superb professional alongside being enormously fun. In his memory, the winner of this challenge will be the game that has the most enjoyable gameplay."
So it came to the official awards ceremony on the final day. I genuinely thought, because Chomp is fun, silly, and learning content that was quite different from the other entries. I thought all the other games entered would swoop up the remaining awards, which they did of course, however, we won again… the Innovation Award!
INNOVATION AWARD
"The Innovation Award aims to recognize innovation in serious games. For purposes of the Challenge, innovation is defined as a characteristic or technique that enhances the serious game in a new, novel, or different way. Innovation can be accomplished through hardware integration, instructional design, game design, content topic, or a combination thereof. The Innovation Award will be judged by and awarded at the sole discretion of the Challenge Innovation Committee."
Not only did we win the innovation award, we were presented with the Overall Winner of The Serious Games Showcase and Challenge Europe 2023. Incredible!!
It’s an understatement to say it was a genuine shock to receive this. We are still processing!
View all the other finalists here: https://dset.co.uk/seriousgames-finalists/
What does this mean?
Well not only has it put a rocket up Chomp to give it new momentum and give it the recognition it deserves, but it also means… We are finalists in Orlando Florida November 27 through December 1, 2023, at The Serious Games Showcase & Challenge as part of the I/ITSEC 2023 (Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference).
This is very exciting indeed, we don’t really know what to expect and can not wait to get involved!
Something that is certain, Chomp is full of energy ready to push forwards for an exciting future!
