Students from Academy of Interactive Entertainment create video game for Adelaide Fringe

AUDIENCE participation is a must in this free Fringe show that’s bound to bring out the competitive streak.

Aanikka Holder, 22, (3D artist) and Eleanor Browne, 23, (game designer and project manager) demonstrate the game Street Artist - developed with colleagues from the Academy of Interactive Entertainment - which will be playable on Rundle Street tonight. Picture: Stephen Laffer

AUDIENCE participation - two words that can send shivers up the spine of Fringe goers.

But there’s one show in Adelaide’s East End tonight that will likely prove a drawcard for those joystick warriors with a competitive streak.

Street Artist is a video game created by students from Grenfell St based Academy of Interactive Artists one of Adelaide’s largest animation, computer design and programming schools which is feeding graduates into some of SA’s and Australia’s leading visual effects and technology companies.

The four-player game - projected onto the facade of the former Nova cinema opposite the Exeter - pits four artists against each other who must paint platforms as they compete to reach a painting at the top of the screen.

Players can jump on each other’s platforms or push each other off in the pursuit of bragging rights.

Tonight is the last chance to play the game, which will be screened from 8.30pm.

The game’s lead designer and project manager Eleanor Browne, 23, of Adelaide, said the game, which started as a class idea, was well received at last year’s AVCON festival, giving confidence to pitch it for this year’s Fringe.

“It’s been pretty fun, we get loads of people our age who want to play but also parents who try it out,” the graduate in the Advanced Diploma of Professional Game Development said.

The game’s 3D artist Aanikka Holder, 22, said she had been drawn to the video game profession having played games.

“I’ve always wanted to make them and I love art, it’s a great way to combine my interests,” she said.