Scottish Games Week kicked off yesterday. Scotland’s very own gaming event runs until November 3rd and as well as its industry conferences, roundtables and keynote speakers, there will also be the Scottish Games Awards.
The Scottish Games Awards is a celebration of the excellence of Scottish games talent. It highlights the creativity and expertise as well as the passion of Scottish game developers. Categories in the awards cover a breadth of areas from artistic achievement to audio and games that capture the spirit of Scotland.
The awards highlight excellence in both big-budget and small-budget games made by Scottish developers. The awards also showcase things like best educational programs, educators in games and diversity.
Pure Quality
One of the games up for an award at the Scottish Games Awards is a PS VR2 game I played and reviewed recently. BLINNK and the Vacuum of Space. BLINNK was made by Glasgow-based developer Changingday. The game was primarily made to be Autism friendly, as well as just being very accessible in General.
What was created as an Autism-friendly and accessible game turned out to be a fantastic, fun PS VR2 game that anyone can play. In the game, you play as a human assistant to a floating Robot called BLINNK. Together your main focus is to collect little Groob creatures who have escaped and are now all over Norpopolis. The game is quite similar to Job Simulator in that you have to complete varying tasks or jobs, all the while keeping an eye out for Groobs to hoover up with your Vaccumizer 5000
In my review, I said of BLINNK and the Vacuum of Space “It is fun, friendly and relaxed with simple yet interesting gameplay mechanics and a host of fantastic characters.” I also called its gameplay simple, fun and satisfying.
This is why Chagningday’s BLINNK and the Vacuum of Space has been nominated for the Pure Quality award at this year’s Scottish Games Awards. I am not entirely sure what the Pure Quality category celebrates but I can only guess it is for games that are, well, pure quality. Which in Scottish slang basically means something that is very, very good.
The Scottish Games Awards takes place on Thursday 2nd November at Platform in Glasgow. I wish BLINNK and the Vacuum of Space and developer Changingday the best of luck. I hope they win.
