2D Game Development Capstone Game Prometheus Unbound Longlisted for BAFTA Student Awards

Prometheus Unbound, a 2D stealth platformer developed at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), was named as one of 10 Yugo BAFTA Student Awards longlist nominees in the game category last month. Prometheus Unbound was developed by CarpoTeam, a student team consisting of Jake Gollub, Ainsley Johnston, Cory Mason, Luke Mason, Rodrigo Okamoto, and Arnold Vente, in Dr. Toprac’s 2D Game Development Capstone Course during Fall 2023. 

Since its launch in 2004, the Yugo BAFTA Student Awards has worked to celebrate the achievements of talented and innovative student storytellers in several disciplines, including games and immersive content as of 2021. This year, BAFTA reported receiving over 800 submissions from 109 schools and 37 countries, with less than 10% of submissions making the longlist. The University of Texas at Austin was the only school in Texas to have a longlisted nominee with both Prometheus Unbound (games) and Elysian Heights (immersive content) achieving the honor. This follows last year’s success, wherein Team 3 Meat (students and alumni Daniel Better, Marin Clark, Joey Genet, Xiaowen Huang, Jules Valle, and Harrison Ward) reached the BAFTA shortlist with Sleep Cycle. 

Prometheus Unbound details the story of Anala, a machine-made-mortal in her journey to find answers about her existence in a neo-gothic dystopian universe. In addition to its honor as a Yugo BAFTA Student Awards longlist nominee, the game has received glowing reviews after its release on Steam earlier this year. Rodrigo Okamoto, one of Prometheus Unbound’s programmers and game designers, stated that while creating the game was challenging, “Prometheus Unbound helped [him] experiment with new things” and showed him what he “would like to focus on in his professional career.” Okamoto, a 2024 GDAD graduate, will continue his career in game design at Treyarch. 

As this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Yugo BAFTA Student Awards, students and industry professionals alike look forward to experiencing the short films, immersive experiences, and games honored from across the globe. “We’re incredibly proud of CarpoTeam and all of their work both in and out of the classroom,” Dr. Toprac, Head of the GDAD Program, commented. “We can’t wait to see what they do next!”

Prometheus Unbound is available for purchase on Steam here. If you would like to learn more about the Game Development Capstone course, more information can be found here. More information on Elysian Heights can be found here.

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The Game Development and Design (GDAD) Program at The University of Texas at Austin is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program between the departments of Arts and Entertainment Technologies, Computer Science, and Radio-Television-Film. The program produces graduates ready to design, develop, and provide leadership for the exploding growth in game, metaverse applications, and creative media agencies and studios in Texas and around the world.