Mind of Khan Studios is proud to announce that we have been selected as one of the six finalists in the Universal GameDev Challenge.

In this challenge, game developers are challenged with proposing games based on some of the biggest brands from Universal and then developing said games. These brands include Back to the Future, Jaws, Battlestar Galactica, Voltron Legendary Defender, and Turok.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to discover and work with Universal brands, Intel, Microsoft and Unity. Although there were more than 500 contestants, we remain as one of the six developers who will be presenting a playable game in two and a half months.

The challenge

The challenge was to first of all pitch game ideas based on the brands mentioned above. After getting picked, we now have to get down to the challenging task of developing the game.

The Judges

The judges were picked from a team of experts in the industry as well as on games and brands.

• Bob Gale, an Oscar®-nominated screenwriter-producer-director, best known as co-creator, co-writer and co-producer of the Back to the Future films
• Kate Edwards, CEO and Principal Consultant at Geogrify, The Executive Director of Take This and former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA)
• Lauren Montgomery, Co-executive Producer at DreamWorks TV and showrunner for DreamWorks Voltron Legendary Defender
• Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer for GamesBeat

Our Original Game Idea

Jaws: The Video Game

The theme of this game is to “bring the fear back,” as the player has to survive when a giant shark attacks a massive aquarium and theme park. Your job is to help survivors get back to the surface.

What’s next?

After successfully pitching our original game idea, we now move onto the second phase of the challenge. This phase starts with a VIP mentorship Summit in Los Angeles. This is a three-day event of workshops and training at the Universal studios. Here, we will meet with Unity evangelists, Intel & Microsoft developer mentors as well as Universal leadership.

“The Universal GameDev challenge is a fantastic approach to ‘get it right.’ Instead of just selling a license to a high bidder and hoping for the best, Universal went directly to passionate game designers and gave them the opportunity to choose a property that got them excited as a jumping off point to work their magic,” said Bob Gale, co-writer of the Back to the Future films, in a statement. “And magic happened! The submissions were full of creativity, imagination, and originality, along with respect and love for the underlying IP. I only wish we could have had a dozen winners because there were so many intriguing proposals.”

Additional reporting from Unity3D and VentureBeat