West Kilbride game designer, 16, up for Young Game Designers awards

Charlotte Bigham, 16, has been nominated in the Game Concept category at the Young Game Designers awards.

She’s been rewarded for her work on High Pressure, a game based on a short story she created in her English class at school.

“You play as a scientist in this underwater facility. Earth has been submerged and the aim is to find a plant which will help get rid of the water and make it survivable.

The whole game is set in an underwater lab (Image: High Pressure)

“It’s a first-person platform game but it has some puzzle elements to it as well”, the 16-year-old told our sister paper The National.

Gaming runs in the family as Charlotte recalls fond memories of playing the PlayStation 3 with her brother and father.

She has been able to find success despite only finding out about the competition a week before entering.

“It started off as a short story and then I tried to adapt it to fit into the concept of a game”, she explained.

“We had to write something dystopian and so in the original story it was about how climate change had resulted in everything being covered in water.

“I didn’t do the programming side of things as it was the concept award. I only found out about the competition around a week and a half before the deadline.

“So based on what I’d written I was getting it done as quickly as possible and turning it into the medium of a game.

“I’ve been drawing characters since I was round about eight.”

Designing those characters is something Charlotte takes huge pride in and she’s looking forward to discovering whether or not she wins.

She added: “I think one of the best things about my game concept is the designs for the characters and locations, I had a lot of fun working on them.

“Finding out I was a finalist came as a huge surprise, but it’s been a great experience so far and I’m excited to hear what the judges think, see game concepts by the other finalists, and learn more about working in the game industry.”

Charlotte hopes that the nomination can act as a springboard to developing her skills in the industry.

She is hoping to be able to study gaming at university in Dundee – a city with well-documented connections to the industry.

Charlotte will go up against nine other entries in the category, with the winners set to be announced on June 22.