Epic Games and Train2Game have assembled a lineup of video game luminaries to participate in Make Something Unreal Live, the groundbreaking game development competition coming to the Gadget Show Live on April 10-15, 2012 at the NEC in Birmingham, UK. One of the judges is Cliff Bleszinski, design director at Epic Games, who can be seen below in an exclusive video interview from GDC 2012.

To complement the guidance of the Make Something Unreal Live advisory board comprised of industry mentors and Train2Game directors, the following individuals will review the program’s new Fighting Fantasy iOS games and coach start-up teams with their unique acumen and words of wisdom:

Ian Baverstock, founding partner, Tenshi Ventures, and advisory board member, Game Developers Conference

Cliff Bleszinski, design director, Epic Games

Jon Hare, founder, Tower Studios

Steve Jackson, co-creator, Fighting Fantasy series and professor of game design, Brunel University

Ian Livingstone OBE, co-creator, Fighting Fantasy series and life president, Eidos

Professor Carsten Maple, director of business education interaction, TIGA

Peter Molyneux OBE, founder, 22 Cans

Dr. Jo Twist, chief executive officer, The UK Interactive Entertainment Association (UKIE)

Jon Yates, director of product development, City & Guilds

“Fighting Fantasy has in the past been used by school teachers as inspiration for creative writing exercises but this is the first time the teaching exercise has been to create a fully-featured video game,” said Jackson. “Ian and I are impressed with what we’ve seen of the students’ work so far, and we are looking forward to seeing the final results.”

About the Author

John Gaudiosi

Editor-in-Chief

John Gaudiosi has been covering videogames for the past 20 years for outlets like The Washington Post, CNET, Wired Magazine and CBS.com. He has focused on the convergence of entertainment and videogames for outlets like Video Business, Home Media Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Gamerlive.TV and is also a freelance game columnist for Reuters and writes for outlets like Forbes.com, NVISION, Official PlayStation Magazine, EGM Now, Geek Monthly, PrimaGames.com, and Yahoo! Games. John also serves as the video game expert for NBC in Washington D.C. and has produced videogame documentaries for The History Channel and Starz Entertainment. John was named one of the Top 50 Game Journalists in the world by Next-Gen.biz in 2007. He is the co-author of Scholastic Books' How to Get into Videogames, Prima Publishing's Madden: Twenty Years of Videogame Football and Electronic Arts: The Official History.