Make Something Unreal Live prize goes to "potential eSport" Epigenesis

Epic Games' annual make Something Unreal competition has drawn to a close, awarding the grand prize to Dead Shark Triplepunch for its unusual first-person ball game, Epigenesis.

According to PCGamesN, Epigenesis has two teams of five facing off across an arena scattered with floating platforms. The idea is to get the ball to the opposite goal, as in many real world sports, but if you hit your opposition with a shot of compressed air you can knock them out of the sky. The indie developer will receive a commercial license for Unreal Engine 3 and next-gen's Unreal Engine 4.

Second place, an Unreal Engine 3 license, went to Kairo Games for gorgeous 3D puzzle-platformer Polymorph, which has the protagonist absorbing genetic traits from the environment as the game progresses.

Team Summit took third place with Beings, which is apparently a kind of Pikmin where creatures can be bred to bring out new characteristics in order to navigate levels; and Static Games came fourth with Mendel’s Farm, farming sim likewise obsessed with genetics.

There games were all developed around the chosen topic of genetics, as picked by the Wellcome Trusts and Epic Games. Epic's European territory manager Mike Gamble also described Epigenesis as a "potential eSports" in announcing the decision.

This year's Make Something Unreal competition was held as a live event, and was judged by a panel which included Peter Molyneux among other luminaries. Previous winners of the scheme, which began as a competition for Unreal Tournament 3 mods, have gone on to commercial release - Antichamber and Alien Swarm among them.