YEREVAN—The fourth Armenian Open Championship of Computer and Mobile Games came to its end on the 26th of October. The event, dubbed “Open Play 2014,” is an exhibition and competition even where video game developers from around Armenia showcase their creations. The show features games for all platforms ranging from mobile phones to personal computers.
This year’s winner in the “Best Game” category is Henrik Hakobyan, with his game “Choppy Fish.” The game will soon be available on app markets. Meanwhile, as part of his reward, Hakobyan will participate in “Casual Connect,” a worldwide event for the video games industry, held this year in Belgrade, where he will present his game at the Indie Prize showcase. “Choppy Fish” was also recognized as the winner of the “Best Gameplay” category, receiving 200,000 dram as a prize.
The winner of the Orange Prize, selected by Orange Armenia specialists and a guest jury from France, representing Orange Group, is the IpricoT team with the “Angry Virus Run” game. The author of this game Harutyun Amirkhanyan, will now have the exceptional opportunity to spend a 3 month paid internship in France at one of the application development units of the Orange Group. In addition to the special Orange Prize, Orange will also promote several selected games, including the “Angry Virus Run,” through its “My Orange” application.
Winner in the “Best Design” category is Zhenya Karapetyan for her colorful “Paint In” game. The prize for this nomination amounted to 200,000 dram. “Paint In” will also be placed on the recommended page of the My Orange application.
The “Best Technological Solution” award, with a prize of 200,000 dram, went to team Good Job, for their “Lazy Monkeys” game.
“Little Leo” by Armen Movisisyan was recognized as the winner in the “Best 3D Solution” category.
The “Best Junior” category winner was Vazgen Hovhannisyan for his “Rockin and Rollin.”
The visitors of the Open Play championship expo had a chance to encourage the participants of the contest by voting for their favorite game. The winner in the “Public Prize” category was team AVAZ with their game “Skydream,” an airplane flight simulator.
Winners in the remaining categories have not been selected by the jury, however, according to the terms of the championship encouragement prizes have been awarded to participants presenting the most interesting solutions. “Skydream” by AVAZ team, “White light” by Conto team, “Monopoly Time” by Monopoly Time, “Zdefendor” by Gagik Khachatryan, and “ScaryMazeBegins” (SMB) by team Shogher were chosen by the jury for participation prizes.
This year, the championship was marked by its larger geography: participants from Lori, Ararat and Armavir regions have also joined the inhabitants of Yerevan to present their creations, compete, learn how to work on new projects, and how to communicate with partners and potential investors.
Open Play has been organized by the Union of Information Technology Enterprises and Orange Armenia since 2011. This year SoftConstruct Co. has also joined the initiative as a general sponsor. The Championship aims at developing the domain of computer games in Armenia, which would enable to create a new trend of technological business, to reveal new talents, and to motivate the youth.