A Dad’s Routine: an award-winning game

BA (Hons) Games Art and Design graduate Valeria Graff was recently awarded a Wood Pencil in the D&AD New Blood Awards 2020. With a Wood Pencil awarded to the responses that are shortlisted to the best work submitted for each brief, we take a look at Valeria’s winning project. 

The D&AD New Blood Awards aim to identify, showcase and nurture the creative superstars of tomorrow. Each year they invite entries from students, graduates and young creatives around the world, in response to real briefs set by real clients.

Valeria responded to the brief set by Rare & Xbox, to create a game that helps players create stories together. Her game A Dad’s Routine sees players trying control one character together, encouraging communication and collaboration.

She comments, “When presented with the challenge to create a game that brings players together, I decided to take a more literal approach- of course this also means you can go the other way and sabotage each other to see how much mayhem you can get up to. Either way the players will have a story they created together.”

Amongst the jury in Valeria’s category were top names from organisations such as Aardman Animations, Microsoft UK, Unit9 and Codemasters.